TRIPOLI RESIDENTS were searching for water supplies from tankers and neighbours’ wells yesterday as the shortage triggered by the civil war’s arrival in the capital bit deeper.
Amid other signs of a return to normal street life ahead of the Muslim Eid holiday, parts of the capital were still short of basic services such as electricity and rubbish collection.
The mixed picture comes as the opposition’s ruling national transitional council scrambles in its honeymoon period to show it is fit to govern, just over a week after the swift collapse of Muammar Gadafy’s near-42-year regime.
Taha Bin Musbah, a student now volunteering as an armed guard at an office building in his neighbourhood, said: “There is no water for a week. But I think with the celebrations for Muammar Gadafy going away, we can be patient for 42 years for water and electricity.”
Residents said that, while some areas on the capital’s outskirts still had a water supply, residents in central areas were having to improvise amid shortages lasting in some cases for more than five days. On one main highway, Ziad al-Fitori, a mobile phone seller, turned in triumph after filling up a seven-litre container with water from a passing tanker he had flagged down.
Mr Fitori, who had just been released after eight days’ detention by rebel forces, during which he said he was treated well, said: “No water, no petrol. But we want Libya free. It’s good.” Other people were filling up at neighbours’ wells to overcome a crisis whose origins are still murky, in a city dependent for its water supply on a pipeline through the desert named the “great man-made river” by Col Gadafy.
While some blame the problem on sabotage by the colonel’s forces or war damage to the water infrastructure, others suggested rebels had cut the supply temporarily as a precaution.
At a main water pumping station on the outskirts of Tripoli at the weekend, residents said rebel forces had seized the facility last week but had shut it off in case the regime had poisoned the supply. Samples had been sent for testing at a local hospital, they said.
Tripoli residents said prolonged power cuts were also still continuing in some areas. A text message sent to Libyan mobile phone users called on electricians to go back to work.
More shops were open in the capital and traffic was noticeably brisker, with small jams even starting to appear downtown. However, activity may have been due in part to people stocking up for the three-day Eid holiday to mark the end of Ramadan. Many people are still stymied by an acute fuel shortage since the rebel advance on the capital cut the supply route to neighbouring Tunisia.
Libyan opposition officials admit that they were as surprised as everyone else by the swiftness of Tripoli’s fall, and say they are working hard to restore services and order to the capital and other parts of the country as fast as possible.
The transitional council signed an agreement yesterday that sets the basis for a “rapid and complete” recovery of the activities of Italy’s Eni, the largest foreign oil company in Libya. The deal was sparse in detail, saying only that crude oil and natural gas output would restart on a “timely” basis.
The memorandum of understanding, signed in Benghazi by Paolo Scaroni, Eni’s chief executive, said the council and Eni would do “all that is necessary to restart operations of the Greenstream pipeline, bringing gas from the Libyan coast to Italy”.
Industry executives believe Libya will return to the global energy market within weeks with limited production. However, they have warned that restoring production to the pre-war level of 1.6 million barrels a day could take months, if not years. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)