WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT OUR COUNTRY

Some of the things that we want to know about our country!

1. We want to know
BUDGET DEFICIT REDUCTION PROGRAM
Why the Government does not set up some specific budget deficit reduction amounts for each of the Revenue and the Expenditure heads in the Public Annual Accounts? We present below our proposals. We call on our government to examine these targets and tell us why they cannot be realized. We are prepared to explain how we have come up with these estimates.
We expect our government to attempt to reduce the budget deficit in 2008 by nearly five thousand billion Lebanese pounds.

Revenue: Revenue boost of 1,400 billions of LP (All the figures below are in billions of Lebanese pounds per year)
1. Tax on interest income 150
2. Built property tax 50
3. RERF 200
4. Others 50
5. Private car registration fees 100
6. Tobacco tax 50
7. Tax on cars 100
8. Casino du Liban 50
9. Vehicle control fees 50
10. VAT on hotels & rest. 50
11. Revenue from Telecom 500
12. Permit fees 50

Expenditure: Expenditure rationalization of 3,450 billions of LP (All the figures below are in billions of Lebanese pounds per year)
1. Debt Service 2500
2. Personnel 200
3. EDL 500
4. NSSF 50
5. Hospitals 50
6. Municipalities 100
1.7. Others 50

For details go to: http://www.budgetbalancing.blogspot.com

2. We want to know
PUBLIC DEBT
Why Lebanon remained practically debt-free for over fifty years then suddenly accumulated a Public Debt of forty five billion Dollars during the past fifteen years?
For details go to: http://www.e4debtservice.blogspot.com

3. We want to know
PUBLIC DEBT
Why no one among our celebrated economists and finance specialists, inside or outside the government, has come up with a definitive and a comprehensive solution to the ballooning of our Public Debt that is expected to reach sixty six billion dollars in 2011 and one hundred billion dollars in 2016 if no drastic action is taken soon?
For details go to: http://www.e4debtservice.blogspot.com

4. We want to know
CDR (The Council for Development and Reconstruction)
Why the CDR does not publish monthly regular reports of its activities and why the citizens are not regularly apprised of the performance of this important government department?

5. We want to know
EDL
Why no clear cut explanation was presented to us for the billion dollars loss that the EDL (Electricite du Liban) has incurred in 2006, and why the periodical Operating Statements of this institution ceased to be published in the National Accounts after 1998?
Why the statistics of fuel and gas oil consumption at EDL are not published anywhere?
For details go to: http://www.e18edl.blogspot.com

6. We want to know
EDL
Why the Minister of Energy and Hydraulic Resources, Mr. Fneich resigned without providing the citizens with the Operating Statements of this institution during the eighteen months that he was in charge? The Lebanese Government promised the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to nominate some auditors for EDL by June 2007. Has this been done?
For details go to: http://www.e18edl.blogspot.com

7. We want to know
LIBAN TELECOM
Why the minister of Telecommunications Mr. Marwan Hamade does not provide us with a clear and detailed operating statement of the Telecommunications Department and the source and the details of the one billion dollars revenue that Lebanon earned in 2006? We are entitled to know how our government earns money for us, just as we are entitled to know how he spends it or loses it. This is more so when the government intends to sell an institution that is currently generating one billion dollars of revenue annually.
For details go to: http://www.r22telecomsurplus.blogspot.com

8. We want to know
LIBAN TELECOM
How much does Lebanon expect to receive approximately from the proceeds of the forthcoming privatization of Liban-Telecom and, more importantly, how much revenue our government expects to earn after such privatization takes place? (see above comments), The auditors, Booz, Allen & Hamilton, promised to up date the government monthly on the progress of their LIBAN TELECOM reform program. The citizens, however, will be informed on a yearly basis only. Why is that so?
For details go to: http://www.r22telecomsurplus.blogspot.com

9. We want to know
REAL ESTATE REGISTRATION FEES
Why the Real Estate Registration Fees amounted to less than three hundred thousand billion Lebanese pounds in 2006, while they should have been nearly twice that amount, considering the nine million square meters that were built during that year?
For details go to: http://www.r8realestateregistrationfee.blogspot.com

10. We want to know
CIVIL ADMINISTRATION PERSONNEL
Why the citizens never received any information regarding the second most important item in the budget, after the service of the debt, which is the personnel wages and retirement expenditure? All that we are provided with by the Ministry of Finance, in their reports, is a single round figure with no explanations and no details. We are not told, for example, how many employees there are in each of the twenty six Ministries and their remunerations.

11. We want to know
NSSF
Why the bill of the NSSF (The National Social Security Fund) grows every year and why the State is perpetually in debt to this Institution?

12. We want to know
NSSF
How the NSSF functions, and when can we expect to have access to the Operating Statement of this institution and its accounts? The Lebanese Government promised the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to nominate some auditors for the NSSF by June 2007.Has this been done?

13. We want to know
GOVERNMENT OWNED CORPORATIONS
Why the citizens do not have access to the accounts of the institutions that belong partially to the State, such as the Casino du Liban and the Middle East Airlines?

14. We want to know
TOURISM
Why tourism has been so neglected by our past and present governments, while other countries give it a priority and derive from it spectacular benefits? We want to know why, in Cyprus for example, a country with half the tourism potential of Lebanon, the number of annual visitors has steadily grown from 700,000 in 1976 to more than three million this year, while we could never get more than 1.4 million visitors in a single year in Lebanon? We want to know why the government has never thought of sending a high level delegation to Cyprus and Jordan to study how these countries are “managing” their tourism “industry”.


15. We want to know
NATIONAL PLAN
Why none of the governments that we have had since independence, including the current one, has ever come up with a clear cut and detailed National Plan and specific numbered targets to achieve?
One of these targets would be a deficit reduction in the way that we have proposed in the previous paragraph. Others would include, among others, a plan for the protection of the Environment, a clearly defined Tourism policy, and the development of the Service sector. All these plans should include specific targeted amounts and/or quantities, and dates.
For details go to: http://www.lebcpi.blogspot.com


16. We want to know
DEPUTIES
Why most of our deputies fail to fulfill their duties properly? In addition to their normal legislative duties, they are supposed to defend the rights of their constituents and look after their interests. They are supposed to be knowledgeable about all the matters of public finance and monitor every item of public revenue and public expenditure. They are supposed to talk regularly to their constituents and, more importantly, to listen to them. They are supposed to keep strict records of all the public sessions that they have attended and the questions that they have raised during these sessions. These records should become public knowledge. They are supposed to have started their tenure with a clear program of action of their own or of the party to which they belong and regularly update their constituents on the successful progress rate of the implementation of this program. Sadly, too little of all this has been done in the past.

17. We want to know
TAX ON INTEREST INCOME
Why the Tax on Interest Income is not adequately appraised and collected and why the taxes that were received during the current and the previous years were apparently insufficient? Raising the rate of the tax by some percentage points will not solve matters if the tax evaluation and the tax collection procedures are not adequately monitored and enforced.
For details go to: http://www.r4taxoninterestincome.blogspot.com

18. We want to know
HOSPITAL EXPENSES
Why this budget head is regularly overspent? Why the government’s commitments are not respected and hospital managers are constantly complaining about their bills being unpaid?
Why the hospital expenses are not adequately investigated for fraud or overstatement and so many invoices are not correctly justified? Why the arrears in the government’s commitments to hospitals at the end of the year are not accounted for in the public records?

19 We want to know
INHERITANCE TAX
Why the inheritance tax is not indicated under a separate budget head in the reports of the Ministry of Finance? Also what measures are taken by the Finance Ministry to monitor the evaluation procedure and the collection of the inheritance tax in Lebanon?

20 We want to know
MUNICIPALITIES
Why this budget head is regularly overspent? Why the government’s commitments are not respected and Municipal Heads are constantly complaining about insufficient funding?
Why the arrears in the government’s commitments to Municipalities at the end of the year are not accounted for in the public records?

21 We want to know
RECOVERY AND RECONSTRUCTION FUNDS
Why the Stockholm and the Paris III funds pledged by the International Community are not better monitored? Why the government does not clearly explain to the citizens the reasons for the slow rate of implementation of the recovery and the reconstruction efforts?

22 We want to know
PRIVATE CAR REGISTRATION FEES- TAX ON CARS- VEHICLE CONTROL FEES
Why no details are provided by the Ministry of Finance on these three types of revenue, considering that Lebanon has the largest number of cars per capita among the countries of the Middle East (1.4 million cars for a population of 4.5 million inhabitants)?

23 We want to know
PERMIT FEES
Why no details are provided by the Ministry of Finance on this type of revenue, considering the increasingly high number of foreign workers and foreign house servants in the country? The revenue results from this budget head have not changed in the public records of the past three years.