Gebran Bassil: Lebanon’s divisive power player

ENAR

To his admirers he is intelligent, principled and steadfast. To his adversaries he is uncompromising, avaricious and self-indulgent. All may be partly true of Minister of Energy and Water Gebran Bassil but, as he battles to maintain his position in any coming government, he certainly can’t be accused of being idle. Rarely a day passes without a press conference covering some new development he is championing. During his tenure he has registered an impressive array of achievements; a new power plant is to be built at Deir Ammar; energy producing power ships are set to boost the grid while renovations are done on existing power stations; an extensive dam building scheme has been initiated; and even a solar roof for part of the Beirut River is in the cards. On top of these achievements is the steady development of the oil and gas sector, which has transformed the ministry of