AUB’s Disappearing Act with Stimulus Money

The US Government is on the offensive. Its launched a name-and-shame campaign against organizations who took stimulus money from the government but didn’t play by the rules. One of the organizations recently shamed: the American University of Beirut:

The board in charge of overseeing the economic-stimulus package today is naming and shaming recipients of stimulus dollars who it says have failed to file quarterly reports explaining what they’ve done with the money. That’s one of the requirements of getting it, but, the board said, some 4,359 recipients didn’t submit their first reports, covering the third quarter of 2009. In the final quarter of the year, the board said, it didn’t hear from 1,036 recipients who received $583 million in stimulus money.

AUB is among those that have not filed in their paperwork. Remind me again, what is the penalty if a student doesn’t file his/her paperwork on time?

AUB's College Hall: A plaque near the entrance of the building thanks US taxpayers for their donations. Maybe they need to add one for the stimulus money they received.

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EDL All Charged Up

It appears that Electricite du Liban (EDL) will finally take action against customers that fail to pay their bills:

EDL has a launched a web site which lists the names and addresses of all those who have failed to pay their dues to the company. The area covers Beirut, Sheyah and Antelias regions. According to a statement recently released by the company, EDL will be compelled to cut off power as of next month on all those who failed to pay their bills on time.

Oh, and EDL will also be filing lawsuits against the parties involved. Will that change anything? Probably not. Plus, the large amounts of defaulters will ensure that the Lebanese judicial system will grind to a halt. But my favorite thing of all has to be EDL’s “website“.

If you haven’t seen it, you must take a look at it. It seems to have been designed by a first-year web design student. Its horrible and you really can’t get any useful information from it. Even their “name and shame” list is impossible to get to; requiring such specific knowledge of someone’s electricity bill that it really questions the whole point of posting the information online. I mean, if I am not paying my bills, I will probably know that and wouldn’t need a website to confirm my status.

The EDL Website: Hopeless, Just Like the Company (www.edl.gov.lb)

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