Lebanon’s energy minister has stopped attending cabinet meetings in protest. The country’s electricity crisis, meanwhile, continues to attend every Lebanese household.
On October 6, Energy Minister Joe Saddi announced that he would suspend his participation in cabinet sessions in protest until the government addressed his demands concerning electricity financing, including unpaid state obligations to Électricité du Liban. His protest exposes a question far larger than a disagreement between ministers: how does a government decide which parts of the state deserve to function?
The immediate pressure is fuel. Saddi says the price of fuel purchased by Electricite du Liban has doubled over the past six months, reducing electricity supply after it had reached roughly seven hours a day in February. He has called for a tariff that adjusts with fuel prices, alongside measures to address electricity theft and recover money owed by the state.
For households, the arithmetic is brutal. Less public electricity means greater dependence on private generators. Higher energy bills consume income already stretched by years of financial collapse. Citizens pay for the failure of the public system, then pay again for its replacement.
According to information gathered for this article, Saddisought approximately, $300m in arrears for the public sector unpaid electricity bills and $70m to compensate for the billing lost due to a government decision to exempt citizens in the South of Lebanon from all fees and taxes. His request was refused by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam for lack of funding.
Yet the same information puts the government’s dollar account balance at the central bank at approximately $900 million. A bank balance alone does not establish how much is uncommitted or immediately available to spend. But it does require an explanation. What is earmarked? What is legally restricted? What is available? And why does electricity fall behind other spending priorities?
The government should publish the answers.
The dispute becomes more troubling when set beside an account of the cabinet’s recent budget deliberations. According to a report published on October 6, Industry Minister Joe Issa al-Khoury requested $400,000 for his ministry and was refused on grounds of insufficient funds. In the same session, the government reportedly allocated $60 million to the Council for the South. When he challenged the discrepancy, Salam reportedly told him to register an objection. This account requires confirmation from the cabinet record and the ministers involved, but the contrast it describes demands scrutiny.
Sixty million dollars is 150 times the sum reportedly refused to the Industry Ministry.
Residents of southern Lebanon deserve reconstruction, compensation and functioning services. Their suffering is real, and the state has a duty to respond. The question is why that response should coexist with the starvation of other essential institutions—and what safeguards ensure that money reaches people according to need.
Relief should come with published criteria, independently checked beneficiaries, transparent procurement and audited expenditure. Without those protections, reconstruction funding risks reinforcing the political networks through which citizens have long been obliged to seek help.
This is the political concern surrounding the Finance Ministry and the Council for the South: whether public spending is being organised around national needs or the priorities of the Amal-Hezbollah alliance. A government that invokes austerity for one institution and finds substantial funding for another owes the public more than a dismissive response.
Salam cannot claim reform while leaving the logic of these choices unexplained.
Finance Minister Yassin Jaber may have political ambitions, and Nawaf may be convinced that spending on the south will bring the government sympathy from the Hizbollahcommunity. While doing so, they are ignoring the rest of the pressing priorities and jeopardizing the Government.
The appearance is of a government that leaves the hardest security questions to the presidency while allowing politically favoured channels to shape civilian spending. Ministers remain responsible for delivering services, yet their ability to deliver depends on funding decisions they cannot control.
Saddi’s boycott brings that contradiction into public view. A minister can be held accountable for his policies, his management and his results. He cannot reasonably be expected to sustain electricity provision while the government declines to settle its own obligations or explain its funding priorities.
There is also a danger beyond the immediate electricity dispute.
When essential services are denied adequate budget financing, pressure can migrate to Banque du Liban. What begins as a cabinet spending problem can become another demand on central-bank resources, weakening the assets available to address the banking collapse and repay depositors.
Lebanon has already experienced the consequences of postponing fiscal choices through its financial system. Depositors are still paying for them.
The debate over gold makes that danger especially serioussince a few so called economic journalist have recently dropped the narrative that the gold belongs to the people of Lebanon, that is the state. The central bank’s outstanding liabilities due to default on its creditors, the commercial banks, make the protection of creditor claims central to any discussion of its gold asset.
Gold and Central bank reserves cannot become a substitute for accountable government. Nor should depositors be asked to finance another round of promises while decisions about existing public money remain opaque.
The government must disclose its available cash, explain its spending commitments, settle legitimate obligations and apply consistent standards across ministries and public bodies.
Lebanese citizens deserve to know why money can apparently be found for one channel the council of the south the most corrupt institutions under the shia duo control, while electricity and productive institutions are told to wait.
Saddi has withdrawn from the cabinet table. The government still owes the country an answer about what it is putting on that table—and who gets served.