Citizens Block Roads with Vehicles in Protest at Fuel Crisis
People got caught in their vehicles that ran out of gas on Friday after gas station owners announced an open-ended strike a day earlier.
Citizens in the northern city of Tripoli blocked roads with their vehicles in protest at the crisis.
In Beirut, taxi drivers and delivery workers staged a protest in the Cola area. Nearby roads were meanwhile blocked in the Corniche al-Mazraa area.
Long queues of citizens were seen swarming some gas stations that remained open although only small quantities were being sold to desperate customers.
"My motorbike ran out of petrol, and I've been waiting outside the petrol station for three hours in vain," Yahya al-Shami said as he queued up for his fill in the capital's Cola neighborhood.
"People are very worried because they all need petrol to work," he told AFP.
"The station is opening for half an hour, then closing again because all the drivers are fighting among each other as they wait."
On local television, a woman complained she had to abandon her car in the middle of the road as she looked for petrol.
"I've been to ten different stations looking for gas and I haven't found any," she said.
Protesters meanwhile blocked several key roads in the Bekaa region.
The Nahr el-Mot vital highway was also briefly blocked by protesters before it was reopened by the army.
Petrol stations have suspended services because of a shortage of dollars needed to pay for imports, a syndicate head said.
A rationing of dollars by banks in protest-hit Lebanon has sparked growing alarm.
The Syndicate of Gas Stations Owners said “some of us received threats from different parties urging us to open our stations.”
Fadi Abou Shakra, an adviser to the Syndicate, told MTV: “We can end the strike if the dollar is provided at the official rate.”
For two decades, the Lebanese pound has been pegged to the greenback at and both currencies used interchangeably in daily life.
29 November 2019, 16:52
03
Blablabla... you can blame Hariri all you want, but you are partially wrong. It is fine for a country to have debts after the war and after reconstruction. The mistake of Hariri was to omit to reform the institutions and administrations then. It was the time to do this. Instead of that, he let the corrupted system gangrain the country. Berri was able to flood the administrations with non working employees, and so did other zaim.
What Aoun is guilty of, is total "laisser aller", he has a bad relationship with most of the Arab league countries since he declared Ebola's weapons as legitimate. He made almost no reforms. He let his son in law who is a thing, run his dirty businesses with no restrictions. he gave so much power to Ebola that the controle in the port, airport, customs became impossible.
29 November 2019, 16:52
03
Any Businessman who imports goods cannot challenge the prices of the Ebola thugs who do not pay customs (and I sure know something about it). The Diaspora got fed up of the militia weapons and do not want to invest in this country any more.And we are a country of services. Not of industry. Without the diaspora and the tourists we are nothing. the diaspora lost confidence since Aoun. Do not forget how many people were jailed these three last years for expressiong an opinion agains Aoun. Aoun did nothing to stop the adventures of Ebola in Syria. This was absolutely un-necessary. Under the pretext of securing our borders, they wged war up to the East of Syria! It was only a secterian war, as ebola is an Iranian proxy and we know it. I could go on and on for a while.
29 November 2019, 16:53
03
To make a long story short... yes Hariri creeated this debt, his Bank (Bank Med) made huge proffits by loaning the state at fabulous interest rates, and he did many mistakes, but we were all making a decent living back in those days, up until 2010-2011. And we could have coped with that level of debt. The problem today is not only the debt. It is the lack of perspective, the laxness of the institutions and of the government, the corruption level that have exploded, the lack of investments, the lack of tourism. And this is essentially due to Aoun and his wonderful alliances.
29 November 2019, 18:43
01
@ the patriot --- you explained it very well. But I fear lots of these protesters do not see it as we do. They have fallen into th trap of blaming capitalism, inequality,etc.. I hear most of them talk about Social Justice. Fine and dandy, but no one seems to point the finger at real cause. Bloated government, inefficient government, corrupted government. yet they all still want the government to run industry. No on talk about privatization or the private sector who can generate jobs and create wealth. I am to an economist, but since everything is quoted in USD why don't they take measure to go fully USD as the currency. few countries have done that when their currency became worthless, which I think the LL will eventually head down that road.
29 November 2019, 21:56
00
Blablabla... a little bit of modesty please...
The debt should have been restructured, the lebanese banks bled dry the central bank for decades, and nobody did nothing about it. Of course that the debt was running (and still is) with high interest rates, and that goes for any country. But a non Industrial country such as ours needed fresh money!? Why don't you get it! We are a country of services, we need tourists, diaspora investments, casinos, Hotels, clean beaches, nice restaurants, ski slopes, and the only tourists we get are Arabs, not iranians, and Aoun spits at their face! There was a million things to do: reform the Administrations, the EDL, restructure the debt, renegociate with the banks, and be a little bit diplomatic with our Arab neighbors willing to help us. Instead of that we let syria and Iran, and their proxy Ebola steal from us!
29 November 2019, 21:56
00
Almost with no limit! The Port, the captagon trafic, the casino, smuggling, and of course, out of the question to collect electricity bills in Ebola strongholds! Again... contracting a debt after the war to rebuild was normal...even if there has been abuse... but what has been done (or what has not been done) since then is criminal!
