How can we get out of trouble? (part two)
A reader of face book mentioned, jokingly I presume, that he was anxiously waiting for this second part.
Okay, I shall try to satisfy him the best I can. Here goes. In my previous presentation I have stated that all the approaches to cure our government’s ills, since independence, have proved, in a large part, ineffective and futile. Some have even proved detrimental. So, any citizen who is earnestly trying to find both the causes of this failure and its appropriate remedy, should adopt a new approach. I shall try and explain it below, in the simplest possible terms.
What do a doctor, an engineer, an architect, a lawyer, a mechanic, a scientist, and a teacher have in common? Allow me to suggest an answer to this question. In order to amend a wrong (solve a law case, repair a car, cure an illness) or create something new (design a skyscraper, teach youth, build a road, or invent a new product) they all proceed in the same manner. They move from effect (what currently exists and needs improvement) to cause (how to improve upon it), each one in his/her own field. If you agree with me on this initial statement, we can use the same approach to seek to solve our national problems.
Let us look at the EFFECTS first. What do we see?
1. The majority of citizens (maybe as much as 95%) complain that they cannot keep up with the high cost of living and the poor and unsanitary living conditions they have to put up with.
2. The government is unsuccessfully struggling to find enough money to:
o Provide, at a reasonable cost, the minimum facilities to the citizens in education, health, social security, social services,
o Maintain and expand the infrastructure: electricity, water, roads, transport, environment, oil & gas.
o Support and improve upon the economy (agriculture, industry, tourism, telecoms)
3. The public Debt keeps growing up at a constantly increasing compound rate.
So, in a nutshell, there is no money in the citizens’ pockets, no money in the public coffers, and worse still, the government owes, to date, some $75 billion dollars, maybe one of the highest ratio of public debt to GDP in the world.
OK, now let us look at the CAUSE. What was the cause of this situation and how can one improve upon it? Here, you will allow me to share with you the results of ten years of hard study and researches, done, most of the times, against the efforts of the Authorities to prevent me from pursuing them. Though, I must admit, some public officials sincerely and honestly tried to steer me in the right direction, most others did just the opposite and persistently ignored my demands, my questions as well as my suggestions to solve the “wrongs” and get to the “rights”. I do not really blame them. They were simply following orders received from “high” above.
But, let’s get down to brass tacks. Why there is no money in the till, and WHY do we owe $75 billion dollars?
To get the answers to these two questions, one would have to go back to 1993, when the country’s Debt did not exceed two billion US dollars, even after eighteen years of Civil War. The researches that I have gone through have provided me with the following answers:
• Why do we owe $75 billion dollars? The Debt of $75 billion is purely and exclusively the result of compound interest accruing every year, and constantly remaining unpaid, to accrue at a compound rate that was initially very high, then gradually subsided to reach the present average of some 6.50% which has been roughly the same over the past ten years.
• Why there is no money in the till? This is because the government is regularly dilapidating every year, at least some four billion US dollars in the following areas:
1) Two billion US dollars in unnecessary energy costs: a)$1.5 billion of high fuel costs that could be saved through gas operated turbines, and b) $0.5 of dilapidations of funds at EDL.
2) $1.7 billion US dollars are dilapidated through undervaluation of real estate properties for the purpose of calculating the 6% RERF (Real Estate registration fees).
3) $300 million US dollars of sundry dilapidations of public funds that would be too long to enumerate.
So, my friends, how can we resolve that lamentable situation? Before electing a new President and/or holding parliamentary elections, the current political parties in Lebanon should agree upon the following:
I. To solve the problem of the Debt, convince the bondholders to reduce the rate of interest by 2%, from 6.5% down to a more reasonable 4.5%. This reduction if consented would save the Treasury $114 billions in 20 years.
II. To save $4 billions a year, or $80 billions over twenty years, undertake the measures recommended in 1) to 3) above
It is my contention that, provided the people, currently represented by the parties, if we consider the mandate of the members of Parliament no longer valid, agree on these objectives, the two elections will enjoy a true meaning. This is because these elections would be held to determine if the people of Lebanon want to solve their problems or prefer to see them grow in size and ultimately destroy them.
So, the famous National Dialogue, that never really took place, should now be exclusively conducted on getting the parties to examine these two problems.
Contrary to the issues of Hezbollah’s arms, its involvement in Syria, or its relationship with Iran, the issues of the Debt and the necessity of imposing strict public budgetary controls, should not be a major cause of dissension among the two main political blocs. I believe that if one succeeds in getting a substantial majority to approve the above two resolutions, one can confidently move to organize and conduct both the Presidential and the Parliamentary elections with effectiveness and success.
