A SOLUTION TO "MACHAKELNA"

A Solution to “machakelna”?

Civil Society in Lebanon is seeking to discover the real cause of our “machakels”. All the time, the answer stares them in the face. It is the failure of our political leaders and our elected representatives to manage effectively our National Budget.
So why don’t we get together and appoint an emergency public safety committee of nine members from the loyalists, the opposition and the independents to redefine the fiscal and the economic policy of this country?

Once a solution to our fiscal and our economic problems is found, it will be easier to agree upon the legal and the constitutional issues. The European Union started in this way in 1956, so why can’t we?

Holding interminable conferences on metaphysical subjects not directly related to our daily problems, accusing the confessional system of being responsible for all our ills without proposing any logical alternative, setting obscure goals such as “transparency” and “good governance” without recommending how to attain them, coming up with ill prepared initiatives without prior agendas, squandering precious resources on organizing training courses or missions, at home or abroad, on projects that may be fine in the West but have little chance of success in our country, skimming over the economic causes of our political debacle without identifying the real culprit and without defining the sickness and recommending the remedy, these are some examples of the futile and sometimes costly attempts by our Civil Society to find a solution to our “Machakels”.

The origin of the problems that our Nation faces is simpler than one could imagine. At the same time the ramifications of these”machakels” are so complex that the use of imported, ready-made solutions has proved impractical.

The remedy to most of our ills stares us right in the face. Still we go on ignoring it and we refuse to take the only course that may lead us to recover, not only our national identity and our economic stability, but also and above all, our “sense of belonging” and a strong “raison de vivre”.

Let me explain. Lebanon is a country of four and a half million inhabitants whose government currently collects, on average, seven thousand billion Lebanese pounds in revenue per year and spends twelve thousand billion (see MOF report for the year 2006). This situation has earned our country the dubious honor of being the most indebted Nation in the world. Furthermore, the population, sensing that it is offered no valid program to counter this ballooning deficit, has lost hope in all their political leaders, opposition and loyalists alike.

Rushing to fill this leadership vacuum, a host of foreign political interferences have sprung up and contribute to create a situation of unparalleled complexity.
The solution, on the other hand, appears simple enough if one considers the original cause of the trouble.

Under normal circumstances, this small country of 10,000 square kilometers, that used to be dubbed the Switzerland of the Middle East, gifted with a wonderful climate, a strategic location, an abundance of natural resources and a smart and well educated population, ought to have steadily grown and prospered since it acquired independence in 1943.

Unfortunately, the reverse occurred mainly because, in the opinion of the writer, some cardinal economic rules were ignored.

Before the 1975-1990 Civil War no serious thought was given to develop and invest in the infrastructure of the country or its core resource, tourism. The only concern of our leaders was to maintain a relatively balanced budget. At the end of the war and until today, for numerous reasons that it is unnecessary to evoke now, the struggle to rebuild the country was not accompanied by a similar attempt to manage efficiently the National Budget
.
The result is what we see today, a semi bankrupt country, a disillusioned population, helpless leaders easily manipulated by outside forces and constantly bickering among themselves.

What is the solution then, would you ask? The solution would be for all the parties in Lebanon, loyalists, opposition and independents, to get together and appoint an emergency public safety committee of nine members, three from each group, who will have no executive or legislative powers but will be in charge of redefining the fiscal and the economic policy of this country.

Some will object: “But how can we find some solutions to our economic problems with the present imbroglio in our political system? Should we not deal first with the matters of the government of national unity or the presidential and the legislative elections? And how can we study Budget issues amid an atmosphere of assassinations, sit-ins, threats of border closures, the Nahr El Bared and the Ain El Heloue events, etc. etc.?”

We believe that all that is happening in Lebanon today is engineered and orchestrated in order to worry us, distract us and prevent us from tackling our problems head on. Let us not fall into the trap that is set for us. Let us, on the contrary, meet and talk, and get on the business of making this country work.

Another argument in favor of such an initiative comes to mind when we consider the birth and the build-up of the European Union. If the forefathers of the Common Market had decided to tackle constitutional issues and legal abstractions first, instead of the elemental economic issues of the time, charcoal and steel, the European Union would have never seen the light of day. In fact, fifty years after the Monnet Declaration the members of the European Union are still struggling to find some common legal denominators among themselves, though in practice, the “machine itself” is working quite satisfactorily. The proof is that the European Union has not suffered a single new war during that entire period. On the contrary, some century old conflicts, like the Irish puzzle, have been successfully resolved.
So, why can’t the Lebanese inspire themselves from this example and adopt the same approach to settle their problems among themselves?

Instead of arguing interminably about the “sex of the angels”, or who came first, the chicken or the egg, why don’t they get on to “brass tacks” and inspect and review together their National Budget and the way it is administered and run in order to find ways to balance it and, at the same time, to set the country on course toward progress and prosperity? Once an agreement is reached on the essentials, by this I mean the collection and the distribution of the national revenue and the development of the national resources, the rest, the legal and the constitutional issues, will be easier to agree upon.

We, at the Lebanese Center for Public Information, will not be satisfied with lamenting the situation, expressing pious wishes or proposing solutions that some would wrongly call “far fetched”. We have already started our own investigative approach into the National Budget and we have published some of our findings into our web site and our blog sites (see the references at the end of this article). We challenge our readers to come to us and share with us their opinions and their proposals. Let them also engage in similar research work to discover new elements and new data on such subjects, as the EDL, the Telecom privatization or the reduction of our National Debt.

Let us all roll up our sleeves and get to work together to find and propose new solutions to optimize the national revenue and rationalize the public expenditure and come up with new ideas to make this beloved country of ours prosper and occupy its rightful place in the region as the leader in democracy and progress.

To learn more about our budget balancing campaign go to the following internet sites:

1) “What do we expect from the liberalization or the privatization of Liban-Telecom?”
For details go to: http://www.r22telecomsurplus.blogspot.com
2) “When shall we tear down the ten-year old data iron curtain at EDL?”
For details go to: http://www.e18edl.blogspot.com
3) “Is there a plan to stabilize /reduce our Public Debt?”
For details go to: http://www.e4debtservice.blogspot.com
4) “Nine million square meters of real estate built in 2006 and relatively little to show for it in terms of real estate registration fees”.
For details go to: http://www.r8realestateregistrationfee.blogspot.com
5) For Information about “Machakelna.Org” or The Lebanese Center for Public Information, CPI :
For details go to: http://www.machakelna.org
6) For information about our budget deficit reduction campaign:
For details go to: http://www.budgetbalancing.blogspot.com

Comparative results of revenue from 2004 to 2011

As shown in the above statement the Lebanese Center for Public Information has estimated that total improvements amounting to 850 billion Lebanese pounds can be brought about in the State Revenue in 2008 provided some effective corrective action is taken by the government. These improvements concern the ten following budget items:

• Item 4) Tax on interest income 150 billion Leb pounds
• Item 7) Built Property Tax 50 "
• Item 8) Real Estate Reg. Fees 200 "
• Item 9) Others 50 "
• Item 11) Private car Reg. Fees 100 "
• Item 16) Tobacco Tax 50 "
• Item 17) Tax on cars 100 "
• Item 20) Casino du Liban 50 "
• Item 28) Vehicle control fees 50 "
• Total revenue improvements 850 billion Lebanenese pounds

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

ALL THE LEBANESE CITIZENS WHO LOVE THEIR COUNTRY AND ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE MUSHROOMING NATIONAL DEBT ARE STRONGLY CALLED TO JOIN IN THE NATIONAL RACE FOR “PUBLIC DEBT STABILIZATION”.

THE LEBANESE CENTER FOR PUBLIC INFORMATION, CPI WILL CREATE A SEPARATE BLOG SITE FOR EVERY ITEM OF STATE REVENUE AND STATE EXPENDITURE, THAT FORM PART OF THE NATIONAL BUDGET, WHERE THEY WILL EXPOSE THE CENTER'S VIEWS ON FISCAL PERFORMANCE AND THE WAY TO IMPROVE IT. THE BLOGS WILL BE NUMBERED R1 TO R40 FOR THE STATE REVENUE, AND E1 TO E26 FOR THE STATE EXPENDITURE.

RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING IN THIS NATIONAL EFFORT SHOULD PUBLISH THEIR SUGGESTIONS AND PROPOSALS ON THE RELEVANT BLOGS.

Comparative results of expenditure from 2004 to 2011

Balance the Lebanese Budget

CPI The Lebanese Center for Public Information
“Inform before you reform and give the citizens a voice”

NGO registered at the Ministry of Interior under reference 450 AD
Post Office Box: 70-207 Antelias-Metn
Email: admin@lebcpi.org website: http://www.lebcpi.org or http://www.machakelna.org

Date: Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Ref. : Balance the Lebanese Budget

Dear fellow citizen,

How you, too, can help save Lebanon

You have seen our advertisement in the Outlook magazine and you have wondered what it is all about. Let us try to explain it in a few simple words.

We need to enlist your help in a national endeavor to find a definitive solution to one of Lebanon’s most intractable problem, the dangerous growth of our Public Debt.

All the economic indicators point out that, in the absence of serious corrective measures, our Public Debt will rise from the present amount of $45 billion dollars, to $66 billion dollars in 2011, and to $100 billion dollars in 2016. You may understand us better if we told you that the Public Debt means that an average Lebanese family of five presently owes $45,000 and will see its debt grow to $66,000 in 2011, and $100,000 in 2016.

“So, what can we do about it?” will you ask.

Our organization, the Lebanese Center for Public Information, firmly believes that any government, present or future, needs the full support and the active participation of the people if it wants to succeed in its efforts to stabilize the Debt. We have therefore decided to call on all citizens of goodwill to participate in this vital race for “budget balancing” to save the Nation. This is how we propose to proceed.

1) First, we plan to expose the facts in a readily understandable language. On our blog site, which you can access at http://www.balancethebudget.org/ , we have published the full list of the 46 items of revenue and the 21 items of expenditure that make up our national budget and that appear in every yearly report of the Ministry of Finance.

2) Against each of these items we have indicated the amounts actually collected or disbursed during the last three years. As a footnote to each item, we have proposed some corrective actions to improve the situation.

3) Every citizen of goodwill, who wishes to be involved, will be asked to “adopt” any one of these items, study the subject in depth, and offer some solutions of his own to rationalize the expenditure of the State or optimize its revenue, as the case may be.

4) We shall suggest, of course, some avenues that can be explored in this respect, but, on the main, we expect the citizens to use their own initiatives and come out with the appropriate keys to the problem.

5) The citizens will be encouraged to publish these suggestions on the blog site, adopting a user name and password of their choosing, for added confidentiality.

6) The proposals will be ultimately transmitted to the government and will represent a good indication of the wishes of the citizens and their effective participation in such a vital undertaking.

7) Reply on our blog site if you wish to join our mission.