Finally? Not quite...
The IEC filed suit at the Jerusalem District Court on Thursday against the Jerusalem District Electric Company for a total of 531 million shekels ($153 million/111 million euros), a company statement said.
JDECO is a private company which purchases electricity from Israel to supply to Palestinian Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem as well as the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The IEC decided to sue after "intensive contact" with JDECO and PA officials in Ramallah failed to reach a breakthrough.But alas, this is only about a third (my math is better than Arutz Sheva's) of the outstanding electric bill.
The Ramallah-based PA also owes money to the IEC. Both the PA and JDECO ran up debts after failing to collect the full amount they are owed by their own customers.
An energy market insider told AFP that the outstanding debt of the JDECO and PA to the IEC currently stood at 1.5 billion shekels ($434 million/315 million euros) of which around two-thirds was owed by JDECO. The lawsuit only accounts for around half of that sum.
Israel's finance ministry is offsetting the PA's outstanding debt to the IEC by deducting funds from the monthly taxes it collects on behalf of the PA.
But in the case of JDECO, Israel has no mechanism for deducting monies, meaning the debt has ballooned, the source told AFP, saying that cutting off the power was not politically feasible.
Until recently, talks were under way to reach a solution, but the PA abruptly halted the negotiations after the signing of a unity deal with Hamas, the source said.When I don't pay my electric bill, the Electric Company threatens to cut off my power within 3-4 days after the bill was due. Is the 'Palestinian Authority' too big to fail?
Labels: Israel Electric Corporation, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Authority corruption
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:27 PM
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