Red Diesel Scandal as Berri Calls for Probe by General Prosecutor’s Office

A scandal of red diesel has hit Lebanon after the residents of the country’s coldest areas, who were supposed to take advantage of a temporary government slash of Value Added Tax, suffered from shortages.

During a meeting of Parliament’s Finance Committee on Tuesday, a member of Speaker Nabih Berri’s Development and Liberation bloc, MP Yassine Jaber, stirred the issue of the red diesel shortage during the one-month VAT slash of LL3,000.

As Safir daily said Wednesday that the committee agreed to hold a meeting within two weeks to hear a detailed report from both the Economy and Energy Ministries.

Berri also vowed to ask the general prosecutor’s office to launch an investigation after receiving the report of the Central Inspection Board.

“The temporary VAT slash was aimed at helping the people and not providing an opportunity for some to make illegal profits,” he told As Safir.

The scandal erupted after reports said that at midnight of January 18, the Tripoli refinery sold to traders 8 million liters of red diesel at the price of LL26,300 hours before the end of the government deadline for the LL3,000 subsidy.

But the 8 million liters were sold the next day in the market at the cost of LL29,300, the reports said.

Some fingers have been pointed at Energy Minister Jebran Bassil, who has been accused of giving benefits of around 15 million dollars to the traders in the North.

Despite the reports, the director general of refineries, Sarkis Hleiss, insisted that the distribution of red diesel hadn’t changed during the entire one-month VAT slash period.

The distribution was about 7 million liters daily, he stressed.

The Audit Bureau began on Wednesday questioning the directors general of oil refineries in Zahrani and Tripoli over the scandal.

The officials were interrogated by the head of the Audit Bureau, Judge Aouni Ramadan, in the presence of Judge Bassam Wehbi.