Feb 25 2011 |
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Lebanese drivers up in arms over gasoline crisis
25 February 2011
BEIRUT: Rony Rizk pulls up at an empty gas station Thursday and begs station workers to give him just LL5,000 of gasoline. His gas tank was nearly empty when he learned that fuel importers had decided to stop supplying gas stations earlier in the day.
The gas station attendant ruefully shakes his head. The station had run out of gasoline at 6 p.m., after cars lined up along much of the length of the Charles Helou highway in order to reach the station.
“I have to get home, and I really have no idea how to,” says Rizk, who commutes from Beirut to the Metn area on a nearly daily basis.
A heated dispute between caretaker Finance Minister Rayya Hassan and caretaker Energy and Water Minister Jibran Bassil triggered the severe fuel shortages Wednesday.
But some of the disgruntled drivers who lined up at gas stations Wednesday say they have no idea why the country is suddenly out of gas. “I don’t know what’s happened to cause this. All I know is that we’re running out of fuel, and that’s why I’m here,” says Tony Matar, an assistant manager at Hawa Chicken, who had been waiting in a queue at the Medco gas station near Gemmayzeh for nearly half an hour.
Medco is one the few stations in Beirut where fuel is still flowing. An attendant who preferred not to be identified says he is confident that they would continue to pump gas into cars for a couple of days, at least.
“Maybe we’ll go down to the streets and protest like everyone else in the Arab world,” George Abi Asal snorts.
“But I don’t think that will happen in Lebanon,” he adds. “That’s just the way it is in this country. If we run out of fuel for the next few days we’ll just stay home, lost and confused.”
© Copyright The Daily Star 2011.
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