The President of the Council of Ministers Saad Hariri inaugurated this afternoon, representing President Michel Aoun, an electricity station in Bahsas-Tripoli.

Ministers Gebran Bassil, Mohammed Kabbara and Cesar Abu Khalil, MP Samir Jisr, former minister Raya Hassan, North Lebanon Governor Ramzi Nahra, President of the Council for Development and Reconstruction Nabil Jisr, Tripoli Mayor Ahmad Kamreddine, General Director of EDL Kamal Hayek and a number of Tripoli figures attended.
After unveiling the plaque and cutting the ribbon, Hariri toured the station and listened to explanations from officials and technicians.

During the ceremony, Hariri delivered the following speech: "Some will ask today how can the Prime Minister represent the President of the Republic? The Prime Minister goes everywhere and represents Lebanon. I have the honor to represent His Excellency the President. These days there is a lot of outbidding and talk about positions and statuses. Each person knows his status and prerogatives.

I am very happy to be among you today for the inauguration of the Bahsas station that we have been waiting for, for 7 years, since the day we approved the electricity plan in my first government in 2010.
This occasion is an opportunity to explain our electricity plan.
Today our country needs more than 1500 extra megawatts to have electricity 24/7.

Yesterday we took a decision in the Cabinet to secure 800 MW within 3 to 6 months because electricity 24/7 is our main goal.

The first thing the government did was to elaborate a plan of three stages:
An emergency stage, an intermediate stage, and a long-term stage.
We called the emergency stage as such because it is not acceptable today to have a deficit of a billion and a half up to two billion dollars per year in electricity when we do not have electricity 24/7!

The deficit is due to the fact that EDL sells electricity to citizens at less than its cost. The kilowatt costs 15 cents and EDL sells it for 9 cents.
The natural solution to get rid of the deficit, which by the way adds every year to the public debt, is for the tariff of the kilowatt to become equal to the cost of its production at least!

However, this is impossible when the citizen is obliged, in addition to the electricity he buys from EDL, to pay a second bill, to the generators, that costs 30 to 35 cents per kilowatt.
Which means that, on top of the two billion dollars a year that the state loses, the citizens are losing a billion dollars a year, because they do not get electricity 24/7.
The first thing we need to do is to provide electricity. This requires production plants. We inaugurated plants in Zouk and Jiyeh with a capacity of 300 MW, which helped increase supply 3 hours a day.
Within a month, the cabinet should approve a solution for the Deir Amar plant, which has been awarded but is facing problem with the contractor.
Its production capacity is 500 MW, which will reach the network in 3 years.

I reiterate that our purpose is electricity 24/7 as soon as possible.
There is also an extra 1000 MW by the private sector in Selaata and Zahrani, to be awarded soon, especially that Parliament approved two days ago the Public-Private Partnership Law which promotes investment in electricity production.

We asked the IFC, which is affiliated with the World Bank, to be the consultant in preparing the request for proposal will operate on natural gas to reduce the cost of production, pollution and environmental damage.
Our main project for this goal is the use of liquefied gas in line with FSRU technology.

All the alternative energies will be used to increase electricity production. The Council of Ministers will grant soon the production of 200 MW on wind power. We insist also on using solar energy and we prepared a request for proposal.
At the same time, we started to work on the installation of smart meters to stop the waste and theft and to improve billing and collection for EDL.

All this is good but if you notice, we are talking about a stage of 3 years, which means an intermediate stage. While I say that we want electricity 24/7 as soon as possible.
The temporary solution, while waiting for all of the new plants to be completed, is to rent energy.

It is a quick solution to secure electricity, avoid generators racket and pollution, and most importantly the generators bill, which means that the citizen can save 30 to 50 percent and most importantly, it reduces the deficit that the state pays on behalf of EDL to zero a year instead of two billion dollars per year.
This is what we can do and we will do it.

To those who want to stop the waste and fight corruption, and I am on top, just remember this number: If this had been done 7 years ago, we would have saved $ 14 billion on the state and public debt.

Finally, the long-term stage, is the study that will be presented to the Council of Ministers concerning our energy needs from now till 2024.
Meanwhile, EDL has prepared with Electricity of France a Transport masterplan that will identify the required investments for 2017 - 2022.
Congratulation to Tripoli, Mina and Koura for the Bahsas station, which will increase feed, stop the bottlenecks and increase 140 MW on transformational capacity.

I would had wished to say congratulations 6 years ago, but hopefully we will congratulate the province of the north on new power stations in Halba, Kobeiyat and Batroun in addition to transport lines that are being established.
Hopefully we will congratulate all Lebanese on electricity 24/7 as soon as possible, for securing production capacity and for ending the chronic electricity deficit because this is a vital project for Lebanon and all Lebanese

Source: NNA