The end of the Lebanese financial model - Executive Magazine
▻https://www.executive-magazine.com/economics-policy/the-end-of-the-lebanese-financial-model
Our politicians are starting to throw around the hot potato; the head of state bluntly tells reporters to go ask the governor of BDL and the finance minister about the situation because he was busy traveling. We have lost all credibility with the international community; foreign diplomats do not hesitate expressing their disgust with us. It has been 18 months since our leaders agreed to implement reforms in exchange for loans pledged by the international community, yet in that time we have failed to even start building one power plant. The electricity sector is in dire need of reform, but our latest electricity plan includes more barges under the excuse of a “temporary solution” before new plants are built. The same excuse we heard in 2012. What a bad dream.
The first choice is to keep watching ourselves drown, allowing politicians to reinforce the denial they promote by promising us that offshore gas will solve everything. As a result, Lebanon will soon be force-fed the usual poison, which could have been avoided had change occurred earlier. This will include a combination of devaluation, a haircut on debt and depositors, and selling government assets cheap—all of which will lead to extreme poverty and from which it will require decades to recover. The other choice is to say stop.
#Liban #déni #corruption