Beiruting News

'Sakker el Dekkene,' the Lebanese anti-corruption NGO, surprised ministers and members of parliament with greeting cards enclosing hundred dollar bills carrying the message, "Explosive gift, refuse it so we can have a country." The expression "In God we trust" was also replaced by "In gangs we trust," reflecting the image of gangsters who promote corruption.

Rabih El Chaer, President of the NGO, said that the main objective behind this stunt was to remind public sector officials that the most precious gift citizens could possibly receive this year is the reduction of corruption. Public sector employees and politicians should therefore refuse poisonous gifts offered to them. Some gifts, he said, are nothing but a masked bribery or corruption, and might cost the receiver his own personal freedom, or his life, as well as the freedom and lives of his children and loved ones.

El Chaer added that the 1600 reported acts of bribery, through the Sakkera application, showed that the average bribe per person is more than 1500 dollars a year. If these stolen amounts had been paid to the State or invested in the private sector, the economy could have been grown and citizens' lives actually improved.

Sakker el Dekkene reporting tools data show that the Ministry of Interior is the most corrupt amongst public institutions. This may be due to its frequent contact with citizens. The Ministry of Finance, however, is reported to have the largest amount of wasted corrupt money especially in land registration and in customs, all due to corruption.

El Chaer also states that if we were to leave corruption without any control, citizens will pay the price at all levels whether within the economy, services, the country's development, personal security, health or other. This is why El Chaer underlines the importance of pledges, from both members of parliament and the government, each in his/her domain of expertise, to develop at least one project to fight against corruption, maintain the project, and achieve a real victory against corruption.

Projects that may be considered important to develop are as follows:

1-      Build a national authority to fight corruption and define a strategy to reduce acts of corruption in Lebanon.

2-      Ensure the Independence of the Judiciary; enhance the relationship between public prosecutors and police stations; enforce the work of the central inspection and judicial inspection.

3-      Reduce squandering in customs.

4-      Reduce squandering in procurement; put pressure on the government to adopt terms of reference for the bidding process; and put pressure on the parliament to vote for amendment of the outdated public procurement law.

5-      Track and penalize illegal acquisition of wealth through 'min ayna laka haza?' The fight against corruption should develop beyond formalities and should penalize all public sector employees who got richer at the expense of public interest.

6-      Develop e-Government to eliminate intermediaries between citizens and public sector.

Last but not least, El Chaer encourages every Lebanese to join the fight against corruption and report it through the NGO's website www.sakkera.com, its smart phone App ('sakkera' on iOS and Android) and its hotline (76 80 80 80). All data are collected to determine the amount of corruption and ensure accountability where each and every government representative will not only refuse a hundred dollar bill but hundreds of thousands of bills.