Minimum wage in Lebanon is 675,000 LBP a month (that’s 450 USD)
The latest diesel generator bill average was: 135,000 LBP a month (that’s 90 USD)

Now, you might think that very few people actually get paid Lebanon’s unbelievably low minimum wage, and that would be true, but that’s only because a minimum of 36% of Lebanese people are unemployed.

So, a fifth of the minimum wage was paid to the diesel generators polluting every neighborhood and alleyway in Lebanon. The generators that fill in the massive gaps the government continues to create with regards to electricity generation three decades after the civil war ended.

Let Us Generate Our Own Power

The government is either too stupid, or too hopelessly corrupt to solve such a basic need for its population. It’s unlikely anything will change anytime soon, with the petty people Lebanon voted for yet again, squabbling over cabinet positions while they lounge in fancy resorts on their summer vacations.

Let us legally generate our own power. If towns and communities band together and create localized, renewable energy projects (like several towns across Lebanon have done) that will be able to at least compensate for the ever-growing, everlasting power shortages in Lebanon.

The politicians are worried it’ll eat into the billions of dollars they have gotten commissions for over the years. Who can blame them? Why not keep milking taxpayers dry while they lay on their back feeling nice and fuzzy in the sectarian corruption pillows they snuggle up in?

Summer is perhaps the time Lebanese taxpayers are the angriest, because it’s when there’s even less electricity than usual, when you need it most for ACs, especially in an exceptionally hot summer like this one. Most generators don’t provide enough current to power a standard AC unit by the way at the above price of 90$.

Squabble over stupid cabinets as much as your heart desires, but let citizens do the work you should be doing

It is not ideal that in 2018, small communities need to start figuring out ways to generate their own power, instead of it being supplied 24/7/365 by a central government. But, that’s the reality in Lebanon, and given these politicians will never leave, and will never change their behavior and ethics, we need to think on a more decentralized attempt to fill in the huge gaps the ministries leave while their ministers are on vacation or trying to increase their wages that are forever, even after they die, like diamonds.

Put time spent filing lawsuits and going on Twitter rants, into solving problems like the Zouk power plant calamity

If a Hollywood production wants a near-future, post-apocalyptic backdrop for a movie, then the Zouk beach would be perfect. The seas are brown and black with sewage and runoff oil, sprinkled with bags of unsorted garbage. The sands look like a tornado went through a garbage dump first, then unloaded on them. Plus the Fatmagul powership with its yellowish fog engulfing the beach and adjacent homes and highway. Plus the twin towers of death, striped red and white like our flag, and billowing the darkest, blackest, thickest smoke that makes you think the Kesserwen coast has a thunderstorm the same numbers of hours we have electricity every day.

Maybe focus on that, not filing lawsuits for people asking about the money being spent for no apparent result?