Issam Bou Hamdan
Let me be straightforward: as a tax-paying Lebanese citizen who pays his fair share and lives and works in areas that provide more than 70% of the central government’s income, I find it infuriating that authorities spend less than 32% in these same areas. Readers have probably guessed that I work in Beirut and live in Mount Lebanon. I don’t believe that every single civil servant in the Lebanse bureaucracy is corrupt or inept – I have nothing but respect for many public sector employees who are doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. Still, revenues generated in my area provide not only their salaries but also the wages of thousands of central government employees who got their jobs based on political connetions not merit, who have no clear job descriptions, are not required to check in and out, who at times are ghost employees only known through the payroll lists, and whose loyalty is not to the wellbeing of our country but to the parties that provided their sinecures.
Why, for instance, am I paying the salary of that peudo-academic and so-called political science professor at the Lebanese University, whose allegiance goes not to Lebanon, but to the Velayet al-Faqih state? Why am I also paying the salary of that retired army general who is always pontificating on TV, and who has sadly forgotten his allegiance to the Lebanese flag and keeps defending the Iranian-backed Hezbollah? And why, finally, am I paying for the retirement of the Head of the parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee who stands just as guilty for our downfall than the political mafia bosses who have ruined us? These are merely a few questions. I could ask hundreds of similar ones.
It is a truism that Lebanon needs financial and tax reforms. The logic underwriting such change should be straightforward: money should be essentially spent where it is generated. Put differently, we need financial decentralization via federalism. Should the current status-quo endure, even if we do get that loan the government is begging the IMF for, it would only be encouraging further corruption and accelerating our downfall. Without reform, we are throwing an opportunity down the drain. Without reform, we will continue to pay for ex-ministers and present members of the parliament who are stooges of a hostile foreign power and its local extension. We will keep paying salaries of that so-called police force whose task is to defend the parliament building, but which is nothing but a private militia responsible for shooting on and maiming peaceful Lebanese protesters at various times.
The alternative to current financial status-quo is quite simple: financial decentralization via federalism. Imagine a scenario where each cazza pays its taxes and collects its own revenues, retains 70% for its own spending, and remits 30% to the central government for centralized operations and bodies such as the army or the diplomaric corps. This will drive each caza to seek means to enhance its revenue generation. Consequently, people in each caza will be forced to take responsibility and perhaps they will think twice before returning corrupt politicians to office. If you know you pay 70% percent of your taxes to a local government, you will have to ask hard questions pertaining to how authorities are doing in terms of public educational sytem, medical care, local infrastructure, utilities, and local welfare programs.
We have faith that IMF decision-makers are not here to make things worse for us. But we worry lest they allow the corrupt central government to obtain loans and grants that will not be spent in the right place. If the status-quo persists, me and my 4 boys will end up paying 70% of the bill to accommodate corrupt leaders who plan to drain the country’s vault even further and until the last pound has vanished. Things need to change and federalism is the way for them to do so.