[ad_1]
Amal Khalil wrote in the Al-Akhbar newspaper:
EDL has always justified rationing limited quantities of fuel oil to operate factories. Despite this, the Corporation sells part of the fuel at a time when the fees and taxes it owes for importing fuels are not being paid and the purchase fees are not included in its budget.
On September 25, the General Directorate of Investments of the Ministry of Energy and Water received a response from the Director General of the Lebanon Electricity Corporation for his responsibility for “returning the status of the petroleum derivatives delivered.” Hayek’s response came in response to the request of the Customs Directorate of the Ministry of Energy and Water, through the Ministry of Finance, to “take the necessary measures to liquidate the status of the derivative and pay the fees and taxes owed by the corporation”.
Since 2005, the Council of Ministers has allowed the Ministry of Energy to import fuel shipments, on its own account, in accordance with the purchase contracts signed between suppliers and the Ministry and managed by the General Directorate of Petroleum. According to the customs book, shipments dating back to the period between 2010 and 2019 “were entered consecutively under special permits issued by customs, provided that the data on the state of consumption in it were organized and the different rates in those incurred would be paid by the institution within a specified period ”.
In his response, Hayek acknowledged the delay in paying duties and taxes on imported fuels. But he confirmed that his institution “had previously organized data on the state of consumption of all these shipments and paid a large part of the total owed.” In a notable step, it demanded that “customs determine an acceptable payment mechanism to be able to pay the remaining part due to the enormity of the sums, or that the Ministry of Finance deduct the remaining amounts directly from the total of the fees owed by the administrations and public institutions in exchange for their contributions to the electricity supply ”. He stressed that the institution “is fully prepared to settle the status of the remaining sums as soon as it reports that one of the interested authorities has adopted either of the two options.”
Thus, the institution that is most costly for the State seeks that the State itself install the rates and taxes owed to it or deduct it from the rebates owed for electricity consumption of the administrations and public institutions, in contradiction with the provisions of the Law of Public Accounting that prohibits the compensation between liabilities and income. Note that the Lebanon’s electricity subsidy share of public debt, based on treasury advances between 1997 and 2020, amounted to around $ 34.5 billion, according to former Energy Ministry chief investment officer Ghassan Baydoun . In addition to the costs of laboratory construction, network development and acquisitions, the costs of consultants for the preparation and development of plans, and the consultants’ fees for the preparation of condition books, supervision, opinion and evaluation of proposals (. ..), up to $ 40 billion. And with imputed interest, this stake increases by an additional $ 10 billion. Where do the billions of subsidies go in light of harsh rationing and the current crisis in fuel supply? The most dangerous thing in the contradiction between Customs and the Corporation regarding the presentation of data on the state of local consumption is that Hayek confirms in his book his organization of these data, while Customs says: “We ask the institution to provide the Customs procedures required in payment of special permits whose goods have been withdrawn, and state data for local consumption have not been organized in this regard. In addition, the payment of duties and taxes is not exempt from submitting the customs declaration of goods.
The suspicion of waste is reinforced by the corporation’s established custom of selling its fuel to oil facilities and the Qadisha Electricity Corporation (privately run), while complaining about the lack of fuel to operate the plants. In a book dating from June 2018, the Petroleum Facilities Administration in Zahrani and Tripoli sent a letter to the Minister of Energy: “Please agree to deliver 6 thousand metric tons of fuel from Lebanon’s electricity, and we are ready to pay its cash price after the General Directorate of Petroleum has determined its cost. Usual. “The then minister, Cesar Abi Khalil, agreed, before the corporation agreed and received the fuel from the ship” Havania Victoria “, for an amount of four thousand metric tons, to the Zahrani plant. Does the institution have the power to sell?
An official source of “Electricity of Lebanon” clarified to “Al-Akhbar” that “Lebanon Electricity applies in this regard the instructions of the Minister of Energy, whose approval is carried out and the price is collected with his approval.” However, where do sales bonuses go if the institution’s regulations do not recognize these types of imports? “I asked the same question without getting an answer,” Baydoun said, referring to a review he did about it when he was CEO of investments months ago. Given the pace at which the organization operates, funding is likely unknown. As the audit bureaus “are still auditing the accounts in 2012 amid a lack of data, including an inventory of stocks and movement of fuel, or inconsistencies in the data, as occurs in motor boats that record two meters, the first for the operating company and the second for the state. “
Regarding the proposal to install or discount fees, Baydoun emphasized that the state’s contributions to the corporation are much higher than the bills owed by public administrations. “Hayek’s priority is to pay the fees of the energy contractors in dollars, with the support of the Central Bank of Lebanon, while the payment of state fees is postponed.”
Source: News
[ad_2]
