After desperate attempts to keep violating companies on the list of suppliers, despite being prosecuted, Energy Minister “Joe Souaid” and his team received a strong legal blow from the Legislation and Consultations Authority. This decision definitively confirmed that any justification for circumventing the law is no longer valid or considered.
The opinion of the Public Procurement Authority was clear and unambiguous: violating companies must be excluded from any tender or bid. However, the minister described this opinion as “incomprehensible,” citing the existence of a “legal ambiguity,” before turning to the authority itself to inquire about the legal procedures to be followed.
However, the Legislation Authority reminded of the clear legal texts, based on the memorandum of engineer “Fawzi Mshlab,” confirming that any company that committed a violation has absolutely no right to object to the decision to exclude it.
Thus, all the justifications and pretexts that the ministry tried to provide to justify the violation and circumvention of the law collapsed.
Despite the clarity of these legal texts, which “Red TV” has been reminding the Minister of Energy of the need to abide by since June, “Souaid” succumbed to the will of his political team and his legal advisor “Boutros Hadchiti,” continuing to ignore the law clearly.
Daily events revealed continuous contradictions between the minister’s statements and reality, starting from holding judicial reports responsible for the darkness, to promoting fake achievements such as the “Hawk III” tanker file.
At the same time, the announcement by the head of the “Lebanese Forces” party, “Samir Geagea,” about “self-sufficiency” topped the public scene, despite the decline in electricity supply hours and the failure to adjust the tariff to reflect the decrease in global fuel prices.
Consequently, the slogan “We want and we deliver” was not achieved, while the “Lebanese Forces” are rushing to hold parliamentary elections on schedule, fearing the exposure of the results of government performance and the resounding failure in the energy sector, after an experience that revealed a wide gap between slogans and actions taken on the ground.
