Lights on… Day and Night

Oozing out of every crack, fracture and crevice, corruption has become a plague to which the state has been rendered numb. From administrations, medicine-related issues to public services, fraud and vice remain the mainstay of every individual that treads the rundown halls. The end can or cannot justify the means, but nothing would eventually vindicate what we witness daily in broad daylight … literally.

While the electricity sector remains recalcitrant stymieing all progress attempts leaning on its crutch, squander signs come as blatant and blunt as the boiling sun calling. Power rationing, the people's archenemy seems to have acquired a more interesting facet; the blinding daylight appears to have lost its luster as the energy sector proudly illuminates the streets during the day … where? Well, everywhere, in Jeita, Dora, Jounieh, Naher el-Mot and the sad list goes on.

With ten Energy Ministers subsequently taking office throughout the past thirty years, none has managed to devised radical plans to alleviate blackouts, knowing that the Industrialists Association sought recycling waste in the aim of actually producing energy to buoy up the remaining stations.

Power blackout is attributed to manifold reasons including numerous ongoing breakdowns, the shortage in station-numbers and distribution cables, electricity violations and the decline in tax collection, not to mention the recent significant increase of consumption following the wire-open-armed reception of the 1.5 million Syrian refugees. However, while we view our obsolete stations as the main cause behind the strobe-effect within our houses, a study divulged that around 30 to 40 percent of generated electrical energy goes to waste, while 60 percent of electricity stations date back to twenty years while another 10 percent date back to over fourty years …

Jeita Mayor Samir Baroud noted that illuminating streets during the day does not cause any squandering as its cost is not related to aforementioned sector. Baroud told MTV website that the municipality had opted for the use of a private generator to ward off obscurity during power cuts, stressing that the municipality had attempted to restrict street-light use to night hours, but failed to do so, hence allowing the witnessed "day lights".

While the end justifies the means in this case, turning misuse into benefit seems the only way to endure in the hopes that Electricite du Liban would one day cast away darkness.

Article originally written in Arabic by Elise Merhej