A Gaza Power Crisis You Didn't See Vigils For

No, no staged candlelight vigils for this power crisis. Why? Because there are no Israelis to blame, though the power crisis is much worse. This time it's just good old fashioned corruption and, on an even more interesting level, the rot that the Palestinian Arab welfare culture has wrought upon itself.

The very basic outline is this: The European Union pays the fuel bills for the Gaza power plant (welfare...or aid if you prefer), by giving money to the Palestinian Authority which makes the payments.

In November the EU cut off the spigot. The PA was supposed to go out and get more people to pay their bills -- collection is a big problem since most people know that it's all subsidized anyway -- and the Hamas government in the strip was also supposed to up their collection efforts and pay back the PA. Little of this has been happening, although Hamas seems to be collecting money, it's not going anywhere: Blackout in many Gazan regions due to lack of funds

Many regions in Gaza Strip have been deprived of electric power since several days ago due to lack of fuel supplies resulting from failure to pay bills of the imported fuel.

Ghassan Al-Khateeb, in charge of the government information center in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said in a statement on Tuesday the Palestinian Authority is "doing its best to make up for the shortage of fuel after the (European) donor countries stopped paying the bills." The authority, since more than two months ago, has been paying more than 80 percent of the bill for purchase of the fuel for the power generators in Gaza, in addition to paying identical bills for Israel, he said...

Also: Gaza power plant hampered by money row

..."Since the donors stopped paying, Hamas needs to pay the money that it collects from the people," he said. He declined to say how much money the authority was seeking from Hamas.

Hamas demanded that the EU continue to foot the bill.

"Cutting off fuel ... is a crime against humanity because the victims of this crime will be children and the elderly and the sick," said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman.

Since the EU stopped payments three months ago, the Abbas government has paid only for some of the required fuel, forcing the power plant to run below capacity, officials said...

The fuel comes from Israel, and this gets interesting:

Israel delivered more than 600,000 liters of fuel to Gaza between Wednesday and Thursday. Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad requested 110,000 Wednesday after the Dor Alon Energy company reduced supplies, following a disagreement between the Fatah-led PA and the Hamas government in Gaza over payment for the fuel.

The European Union paid for the fuel until November. Since then the PA has paid 80 percent of the bill, 10 million Euros a month. Hamas made a committment to pay the rest and collected the money from the public for electricity, but according to the PA, has not given the government in Ramallah payments for three months.

The best report actually comes from Ma'an News discussing the Palestinian Center for Human Rights investigation: PCHR investigates Gaza power crisis

...PCHR noted strong "reservations on the aid method adopted by EU, represented in providing funds to cover the costs of the industrial fuel. This aid has encouraged thousands of civilians not to pay their power bills, in spite of their ability to pay these bill, under the pretext of the availability of external financial support. This is not in the interest of people."...

...By reducing the production of the Plant to the half, the deficit of electrical power in the Gaza Strip increased to 42%, PCHR found.

The compound deficit of electrical power resulted in power outage in wide areas across the Gaza Strip with an eight-hour cycle of on and off cuts, the report said...

...The Gaza Electricity Distribution Company (GEDCO) is responsible for collecting payment from Gaza power beneficiaries. The Energy Authority referred its failure to supply the industrial fuel to its financial deficit, which is the result of nonpayment by the GEDCO.

GEDCO collects 20 million shekels per month, of an estimated 55 million in bills handed out. According to the report, an estimated 60- 70% of beneficiaries have not paid their bills since 2000, owing approximately $ 2.7 billion US dollars to GEDCO.

As a result, GEDCO reported that the Company was not able to pay its bills to the Energy Authority.

Of the bills collected, GEDCO transfers between 12 to 17 million shekels to the Energy Authority and the rest is spent to cover GEDCO's operational costs, networks maintenance and salaries, PCHR said.

The power plant, PCHR noted, is a stock company, a third of which is owned by Morganti, an American company. The Palestinian Development and Investment Company (PADICO), Pal Tel Group, the Arab Bank and other companies own the second third of the Plant's shares, while the third third is owned by individual shareholders, the report said. In June 1999, the plant declared and subscribed capital of 60 million US dollars, in 2008, the net revenues were registered at 6.278 million, while in 2007, its revenues amounted to 4.355 million.

"We can not understand the large size of revenues made by the Power Plant in view of the growing power crisis in the Gaza Strip," PCHR noted...

Corruption? No need to actually pay for the amount of fuel you're receiving? Just another mess created by international welfare.