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.