There is an increasing number of cases like this worldwide, but the Lebanon situation is particularly dramatic, as we documented in a slug published here yesterday. The country’s two main power plants had to shut down on Oct. 9, because they ran out of fuel, which means there is now no government-produced power in the country of 7 million people. “Electricité de Liban said the shutdown reduces the total power supply to below 270 MW, which means a major drop in the stability of the grid,” NBC reported today.
Private generators are also unable to afford the skyrocketing prices of fuel, and so the country is going dark. NBC further reported: “Distributors of gas canisters used for cooking and heating stopped operating, saying subsidy cuts amid black-market currency fluctuations meant they were selling at a loss.”
A large part of the problem is that the IMF and World Bank are squeezing for “reforms” – i.e., austerity, cutting back subsidies, and privatization – of the national electricity company, which reportedly “has annual losses of up to $1.5 billion, and has cost the state more than $40 billion over the past decades.” Under ongoing IMF assault, about three quarters of the population has plunged into poverty over the last year. There has been a 90% devaluation of the currency since 2019.
