The corruption of Lebanon
The international community has joined this fight against corruption in Lebanon. On August 9, 2020, a global summit of donors authorized $298 million to directly help the Lebanese population. This relief package suggests a departure from previous payments of aid to the government. This practice fostered embezzlement by leaders and eroded the regime’s accountability to the public. Fortifying their stance against corruption, the forum also announced that Lebanon must enact long-overdue reforms to qualify for further funding.
Corruption Perceptions Index: Lebanon ranked 149th,
Transparency International's 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) scored Lebanon at 24 on a scale of 0 to 100, where a score of 0 signals a perception of a very corrupt public sector and 100, a very honest one. When the 180 countries of the 2021 CPI were ranked by score with the highest-scoring countries at the top of the list, Lebanon ranked 149th, among the lowest-scoring countries of the Index.
Lebanese Politics
Lebanese political institutions often play a secondary role to highly confessionalized personality-based politics. Powerful families also still play an independent role in mobilizing votes for both local and parliamentary elections. Nonetheless, a lively panoply of domestic political parties, some even predating independence, exists. The largest are all confessional based. The Free Patriotic Movement, The Kataeb Party, also known as the Phalange Party, the National Bloc, National Liberal Party, Lebanese Forces and the Guardians of the Cedars (now outlawed) each have their own base among Christians. Amal and Hezbollah are the main rivals for the organized Shi'a vote, and the PSP (Progressive Socialist Party) is the leading Druze party. While Shi'a and Druze parties command fierce loyalty to their leaderships, there is more factional infighting among many of the Christian parties. Sunni parties have not been the standard vehicle for launching political candidates, and tend to focus across Lebanon's borders on issues that are important to the community at large. Lebanon's Sunni parties include Hizb ut-Tahrir, Future Movement, Independent Nasserist Organization (INO), the Al-Tawhid, and Ahbash. Besides the traditional confessional parties above, new secular parties have emerged amongst which Sabaa and the Party of Lebanon representing a new trend in Lebanese politics towards secularism and a truly democratic society. In addition to domestic parties, there are branches of pan-Arab secular parties (Ba'ath parties, socialist and communist parties) that were active in the 1960s and throughout the period of civil war.
Lebanon: The corruption
Lebanon has long endured institutionalized corruption. Its current government system formed after the previous regime’s ineptitude eroded national security to the point of civil war. The war lasted from 1975-1990. The conflict occurred between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Christian groups backed by Israel and Syria, with both seeking political control over Lebanon. After 25 years of fighting, over 100,000 killed and thousands more uprooted, the conflict finally ended with the signing of the Taif Accord. This accord shaped the constitution into a document conducive to graft.
Lebanon’s corruption crisis
Shared goals can trump political differences. Riad Kobaissi, an investigative journalist with Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television channel who has looked into corruption at the port since 2012, told me that every major political party has its people at the port. Even political rivals “can coordinate when it comes to Mr. Benjamin Franklin” — a $100 bill — “he is the guy who can solve any problem in Lebanon.
Attieh cannot hire or fire personnel
Attieh cannot hire or fire personnel. That privilege belongs to the cabinet and to the sectarian political leaders, who stack government ministries and public institutions with loyalists. The cabinet sent Attieh a list of names, which were not chosen from within the Central Inspection Board as required by law. Attieh refused to sign off. Finally, after about six months, the cabinet relented. It was Attieh’s first win. “I felt like, whoa, 30 years of accumulated corruption,” he said. “It’s like a mountain in front of me, and I have small, small tools to chip away at that mountain.
The Port of Beirut
The Port of Beirut is overseen by a hodgepodge of government and security agencies with overlapping mandates. Technically, the port falls under the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation and the Ministry of Finance, as well as a body established in 1993 with a mouthful of a name, the Temporary Committee for Management and Investment of the Port of Beirut. Despite its “temporary” status, it is still in operation — though very little of what it does is subject to any scrutiny. It does not publish financial statements, and its board is appointed by the country’s political leaders. A host of civilian entities operates at the port within the various government ministries and committees, in addition to security and intelligence agencies, including the Lebanese Armed Forces.
Lebanon’s government works within the Civil War
Lebanon's government works within the framework of Confessionalism (politics), with parliamentary seats and others government positions allocated by religious confession. Many members of government have been in power since the Lebanese Civil War, with a simple shuffling of positions every election cycle. Many blame this system for the country's continued corruption. Government officials reportedly often award contracts to friends and family leading to many of the country's problems like daily power cuts. Many working class Lebanese citizens rely on economic assistance from their party which stops them from speaking up against the system or bring them to justice, despite widespread opposition.
“The corruption is a cause of the enforcement of justice”
A political outsider, Diab served as education minister for a few years and was a professor of computer engineering and vice president of the American University of Beirut for decades. He says he was undermined and obstructed “from Day 1” because if his government “succeeded in uncovering just a fraction of the corruption, it would expose part of this corrupt class. They didn’t want that to happen.
Lebanon : offshore finances, a spectacular effort
Few Lebanese people will be surprised that the latest leak of offshore financial documents alleges senior Lebanese figures, including the current prime minister, have used offshore tax havens (although Najib Mikati, a businessman who took the top job in July, has denied this). That the so-called Pandora Papers lists Lebanon as a world leader in the most offshore companies – 346 – further highlights the industrial scale of corruption in the state.
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