Chairman of the Presidential Council (PC), Fayez Al-Sarraj has agreed with the military leaders, security officials, and the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) to form a security chamber from the meeting parties to provide protection for all electric power facilities, starting from Wednesday.

The agreement came during a meeting held by Al-Sarraj on Wednesday, in the presence of undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior, undersecretary of the Ministry of Defence, commander of the Western Military Region, commander of the Central Military Region, commander of the Joint Force, commander of the Special Deterrent Force, the presidential adviser on energy, and the chairman of the board of directors of the GECOL.

The meeting was devoted to discussing urgent and firm measures related to the fair distribution of load shedding hours between regions.

They also considered taking action to protect power stations, secure control rooms, and to counter attacks, looting, and theft of equipment, stressing that vigorous legal action would be taken against vandals, according to the PC media office.

Al-Sarraj also discussed with the GECOL head and members urgent measures to cover the supply deficit, as part of efforts to help mitigate the crisis.

The meeting comes two days after the electrical network collapsed plunging the entire western region into total darkness.

According to the GECOL, several issues have contributed to exacerbating the situation, inter alia, the repeated attacks on power stations, the refusal of some regions to take their share of the load shedding hours by returning the electricity back by force, and the locking of the gas valve feeding the Zawia station.

Residents of the Western Mountain Region and areas near Tripoli had to contend with power outages several times during Wednesday and Thursday, after gunmen insisted to restore electricity to their areas by force, while the GECOL technicians were trying to rebuild the power grid after the blackout, according to the GECOL.