BEIRUT: After many weeks of intensive rationing, Beirut’s electricity supply might return to normal in two days, after the company found another way to get the tools to carry out the required repairs.
“The repairs might be completed during the next two days, which would bring the electricity situation in Beirut back to normal,” Electricite du Liban’s Chariman Kamal Hayek told Al-Liwaa newspaper.
The news was confirmed by the contract workers’ spokesman Ahmad Shoeib, who told The Daily Star that he had received a call from a lawmaker informing him of Hayek’s decision.
Al-Liwaa quoted Hayek saying that “spare parts were bought from the market, and not brought from the company’s warehouses that are closed by the contract workers.”
The harsh electricity cuts in the capital, which have increased from three to more than 12 hours per day, were the result of a technical malfunction in a 66,000-volt cable near the UNESCO building, according to EDL.
The malfunction happened in middle of the ongoing strike by EDL contract workers, who have blocked the entrance to the company's offices for 35 days running.
EDL’s administration has said that the spare parts needed to fix the malfunction were in the company’s warehouses at the headquarters near Mar Mikhael.
However, contract workers have said that they would allow EDL employees access to the warehouse anytime, if they need to pull out tools for emergency repairs.
The company’s administration rejected the offer of limited access to the headquarters, saying it would not enter under the authority of the contract workers, which it considered insulting to the executives.
As the “company’s dignity” dilemma drags on, the numerous complaints and cries left EDL with no choice but to find a solution.
The contract workers had argued that the whole matter was a fabrication by EDL to throw the blame on them for the rationing, claiming that the repair tools exist in other EDL warehouses.
“The transportation workers did not come to get the spare parts, some of which are stored in other locations like the Sad al-Boushrieh plant that has no [striking] contract workers,” they said in a statement Friday morning.
The workers said they had allowed some violations of the strike to repair many malfunctions in Beirut and other areas of Lebanon, stressing on the need for a “constructive dialogue” with the administration.
Contract workers have been on strike since the end of July, demanding to become full-time employees at EDL.
Currently working at private service-providing companies, whose contracts with EDL will end by 2016, the workers are demanding a guarantee of full-time employment with benefits.
The strike emerged after the company decided to only hire 897 out of the nearly 2,000 workers, while the rest would stay at the private companies until the contracts end.
However, the workers have continuously demanded to be immediately employed at EDL, in fear to return to the old days of day labor, when they used to work for low wages with no social security or benefits.
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