13 January 2011
BEIRUT: Electricite du Liban employees removed over 1,000 illegal connections to the power network last month, according to a statement issued by the E.D.L.’s media office Wednesday.
Of the 1,028 violations that were identified, 337 were located in Beirut and its suburbs, 122 in Mount Lebanon, 369 in north Lebanon, 168 in the south and 32 others in the Bekaa region.
E.D.L. personnel who remove violations in certain parts of the country have often been subjected to attacks by angry residents and others who have installed the illegal connections. But the head of E.D.L.’s employees union, Charbel Abi Saleh, told The Daily Star that no such assaults had taken place during the removal of the illegal connections.
Last month, the head of E.D.L.’s Jounieh division was beaten in his office by an individual whose electricity supply was cut off by employees from the utility after he had failed to pay several bills delivered on his account.
E.D.L. asked the public to aid its employees as they carry out their work.
E.D.L. “urges the Lebanese to facilitate the work of the personnel on duty to remove illegal connections because such violations are harming the subscribers’ electricity service and are resulting in the malfunctioning of the main electricity grids,” said a statement issued by E.D.L. It added that it would take legal steps against anyone who continues to rely on illegal connections to the network, while asking subscribers to pay their bills in full to avoid seeing their power supply cut off. – The Daily Star
Copyright The Daily Star 2011.
