A parliamentary committee in Lebanon has warned that the country’s telecommunications and internet sector could collapse within days due to fuel shortages.
Lebanon is currently going through what the World Bank has said is one of the worst economic crisis in history, with three of its four citizens living in poverty.
While it has reached out to neighbors and allies for aid, the UNSC has said it will get help only after enacting reforms that addresses the gaps in governance that they believe led to the crisis in the first place.
Now, Parliament’s Media and Communications Committee has said: “The quantity of diesel at Lebanon’s state-owned Touch and Alfa mobile companies and the state-run telecommunications company Ogero, which operates fixed lines and fixed internet, is enough to run for only a few days, otherwise telecom services will crumble.”
Telecom companies in Lebanon have joined the long list of at-risk industries and institutions because of the financial and economic crisis.
Electricite du Liban was unable to secure electricity for institutions and households in recent months, especially after the government subsidy on diesel was lifted. Diesel prices, which were set in US dollars, doubled as a result.
Telecom services, including the internet, were intermittently suspended in several regions in recent months.
MP Hussein Hajj Hassan, who heads the committee, said: “The dilemma is not limited to the inability to secure diesel, but also the inability to purchase spare parts, whose prices have become exorbitant. In addition, we have thefts targeting telecom networks in Lebanon, some stolen pieces of spare parts and transmission poles are being sold online.”
He added: “It turned out that Touch and Alfa, which get diesel from oil facilities, now have to pay for it in dollars, so now government institutions are required to pay in dollars. This is complicated because companies do not have the right to buy with dollars from the market, and this increases the cost, and this foreign currency is not available.”