The General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) reported yesterday that since the early morning hours of Friday, its Central Emergency and Reporting Room has received approximately 8,000 reports, which have been addressed and followed up on in the field.
The Tripoli government updated this figure to 9,750 early this morning.
It claimed that ‘‘the vast majority of these reports have been resolved in coordination with the relevant technical teams’’.
GECOL confirmed that the Reporting Room and maintenance teams will continue to operate and respond to incoming reports.
It will be recalled that the Reporting Room was created upon the instruction of Tripoli based Libyan PM Abdel Hamid Aldabaiba.
The Reporting Room begun receiving reports from citizens regarding sudden power outages and emergency malfunctions. It is coordinating directly with maintenance teams to address these issues and restore power as quickly as possible.
The Reporting room: a useful public anger-management tool for the Aldabaiba government?
The new GECOL Chairman, Bashir Al-Marash, was only installed last Tuesday (18 August), but already under his stewardship GECOL is attempting to communicate more with the beleaguered Libyan public.
This contrasts markedly with his sacked predecessor who adopted a bunker mentality and avoided making any ameliorating statements to the public during the summer’s extended power cuts and blackouts.
It is the Aldabaiba government that instructed GECOL to create this call centre. The figure of 9,750 calls received in one day is quite remarkable in a country where there is not an established culture or dynamic of customers calling suppliers to complain.
It is to be seen if the GECOL Call Centre will divert people’s anger this summer away from violent demonstrations, road blockades with burning tyres, barricading government and state buildings, attacking state facilities with armed drones, and calling for the downfall of the PM and his government.
Ultimately, the Libyan public expects its government of the day to provide the basics of modern life of security, cash in banks, water, fuel and electricity.