seethruLebanonblogging transparency |
A new document has been added to our archive; it’s a study made by the Council of Citizens (CoC) on the benefits of placing cameras in public administrations and detention centers in efforts to fight bribery and torture.
CoC Study - Cameras in Public Administrations and Detention Centers
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BEIRUT: Telecommunications Minister Jebran Bassil said on Tuesday that the government will start reducing cellular-phone rates in February or March as the new companies which won the contracts to operate the country’s networks expand the number of subscribers. “We will surely start cutting the rates of the mobile lines in February or March and increase the number of subscribers at the end of April of this year,” Bassil told The Daily Star in an exclusive interview.
Late Monday the Cabinet agreed to award the contracts to operate MTC Touch and Alfa lines to Egypt’s Orascom Telecommunications and Kuwait’s Zain. The contracts with the companies are for one year with the option of renewing them if the government decides to keep them.
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Transparency International released their CPI 2008 index. In the table, Lebanon figures in the 102nd place out of 180 countries. In the regional highlights on the Middle East and North Africa region, the report says:
“The 2008 CPI results illustrate that although corruption and lack of transparency still constitute a fundamental challenge for the region’s development, increased debate on the issue corruption is driving slow but steady steps towards structural reform. From Morocco, through to Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait and Yemen the issue of combating public sector corruption has gained momentum and legitimacy and is now being addressed openly as a principal obstacle to
development. This momentum extends to Palestine, although it is not included in the 2008 CPI.”
With a [global] score of 3.0, Lebanon ranks 11th among Arab countries. Last year, Lebanon was ranked 99th among 179 countries (10th among included Arab countries), and received the score of 3.0/10 according to the Lebanese Transparency Association.
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Shatah: failure to privatize mobile networks could push public debt to $49 billion
By Osama Habib
Daily Star staff
Friday, September 12, 2008
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s budget deficit is expected to surpass 37 percent of spnding, or $3.2 billion, in 2009 due to mounting losses at the state-owned electricity firm and higher allocations for government employees’ wages, Finance Minister Mohammad Shatah said Thursday. He also warned that the public debt could rise to $49 billion next year if the privatization of the cellular networks did not take place on time.
“The 2009 budget will definitely note a bigger deficit compared to this year especially if we added the $500 million expenditure increase on public-staff wages and the projected $2 billion losses of Electricite du Liban (EDL),” Shatah told reporters at the Finance Ministry.
The public debt, which currently stands at $44.5 billion, is one of Lebanon’s major obstacles for full economic recovery.
The government on Tuesday decided to increase the minimum wage to LL500,000 from the current LL300,000 for both the private and public sectors as well as LL200,000 pay raise for all categories of salaries.
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I came across this overview of Lebanon’s social security made by the US Social Security Administration, under the Social Security Programs of The World (SSPTW) Asia and the Pacific, 2002.
Click here to view the PDF version.
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I came across this video recently on the Ministry of Economy and Trade’s website, I thought I’d share it:
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