The Port of Beirut‘s electricity could cut off at any moment, the head of the Syndicate of Importers in Lebanon has warned.
Hani Bohsali, the Importers Syndicate’s President, announced in a statement on Thursday that he had made a series of calls with officials at the Port of Beirut to evaluate its supply of electricity.
He revealed that the information he has received indicated that “the measures taken during the past two days are temporary and will not lead in any case to the continuous provision of electricity to the Port,” and that there is “a high probability” that the problem would return “at any moment.”
Bohsali went on to warn that failure to supply the Port with round-the-clock electricity would cause many units to fail, including the hundreds of refrigerating units located at the Port.
He pointed out that the Beirut Port has around 600 containers filled with foodstuffs that require continuous power. Otherwise, they would be “severely damaged and destroyed.”
As such, Bohsali called on the Ministry of Public Works and Transport and the Ministry of Energy to take immediate action to secure the basic needs that would enable a continuous and sustainable flow of electricity to the Port of Beirut.
“Aren’t all these disasters that struck the Port of Beirut, leaving a large part of it out of work, enough for this new crisis that harms its image, role, work, and productivity to come?” he asked rhetorically.
Lebanon as a whole has been at risk of total darkness as a result of a fuel crisis that has caused the nationwide rationing of electricity to get worse.
In addition to that, the Turkish ships that have been providing Lebanon with power for years recently shut off their generators.