Miqati Hails Agreement with Turkish Company as Committee Sets Penalty on Commissions
Prime Minister Najib Miqati hailed on Friday the decision by a ministerial committee tasked with studying the leasing of the power-generating vessels to ink an agreement with the Turkish company Karadeniz.
According to al-Liwaa newspaper, the premier considered that the decision reached his expectations as the tenders with the companies were transparent and the original price was slashed by 9 percent.
Miqati hoped that the cabinet would approve the committee’s decision, noting that the first vessel would arrive in Lebanon at the end of July.
Sources told As Safir newspaper that the Turkish company representatives were lenient more than the representatives of an American company who refused to lower the prices during negotiations.
The daily reported that the committee tasked a technical committee to follow up the work during the Easter holiday in order to draft the contract and conditions and refer it to the cabinet for discussion on April 20.
The sources revealed that the main reason behind choosing Karadeniz was its pledge to send the first vessel in July while the second ship will be dispatched a few months later.
Energy Minister Jebran Bassil told As Safir that the committee took the right decision that is in Lebanon’s best interest.
“We have reached a deal better than we had expected,” Bassil said.
According to al-Liwaa, Miqati headed the negotiations with the Turkish company in the presence of the committee members, including Bassil.
An Nahar newspaper said that the ministerial committee imposed a condition that the Turkish company would have to pay a penalty worth 10 times the amount of a commission paid to anyone other than its legitimate agent engineer Haitham Doumit.
The committee was able to reduce the price of leasing the power vessels from $870 million over the next two years – renewable for one year.
The two Turkish ships will have a capacity of 270 megawatts.
The cabinet had agreed to lease the power vessels in order to rehabilitate Jiyyeh and Zouk power plants and build one or two new ones to resolve Lebanon’s lingering electricity crisis.
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