Corruption rife 'in every level of society'

BEIRUT: Corruption has embedded itself in every level of Lebanese society, according to Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA), which takes the government to task for not enacting a national anti-corruption strategy in their report released this week. The 130-page “National Integrity System” study highlights Lebanon’s many institutional weaknesses and key areas that are in need of urgent reform in order to ensure the rule of law, sustainable development, and, overall, a better quality of life for all Lebanese citizens. 

The study was conducted as part of anti-corruption NGO Transparency International’s three-year “Promoting Transparency and Enhancing Integrity in the Arab Region” program, which aims to analyze the systemic causes of corruption in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Palestine and identify sustainable structural reforms needed to effectively tackle corruption. 

LTA’s study highlights a series of recommendations to address the corruption in Lebanon. Some have long-been championed by civil society and other activists, such as generating a National Anti-Corruption Strategy and passing Access to Information and Whistle Blower Protection draft laws. 

Others are more controversial, such as implementing Article 95 of the Lebanese Constitution, which abolishes political sectarianism, and adopting a nonconfessional electoral law that provides for equal representation of all the population. 

The election law, the LTA said in its study, should outline specific campaign finance regulations and introduce pre-printed ballots, with the upcoming 2010 municipal elections providing the optimal opportunity for introducing such reforms. 

The study advocated that a Conflict of Interest law should be introduced in order to prohibit MPs from occupying ministerial positions in industries or sectors in which they have private interests. 

The study also notes that while many international actors are involved in promoting good governance, there are no rules governing them in Lebanon and they mostly operate independently. 

Furthermore, there appears to be “little coordination” among these international programs, which leads to overlap in promoting good governance and “duplication of efforts,” the study said. 

Due to a lack of oversight and the proper mechanism to monitor their activities, international actors are increasingly becoming identified as extensions of local political movements, rather than agents of reforming society. 

The study also outlines the anti-corruption efforts that are required in non-official sectors such as the media, the private sector and civil society. 

The study urged the business sector to separate the functions and roles of the chairman, general director, and management in all of it companies, especially in the common case of family-owned businesses. 

The study says corruption flourished after the 1989 Taif Accord, due to the absence of a national strategy against corruption and the prevalence of the power-sharing system, which “led to new bargains and political arrangements based on patronage networks, especially via appointments to official positions.” 

Conflict among the different religious communities resulted in the country’s key political institutions becoming part of the institutionalization of corruption, the study said. 

Neither the reforms promoted by Taif nor subsequent corruption-fighting initiatives have made a serious attempt to deal with corruption. 

The study cites the disappointing experience with the Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR), which in 1994 launched an initiative aimed at reforming public administrations by firing incompetent public servants. 

This effort was abandoned soon after because the civil servants in question had close ties to political figures, the study also noted.

In Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Lebanon scored three out of 10 (on a scale from 0 “highly corrupt” to 10 “highly clean”) and ranked 102nd among 180 countries and 11th out of 20 countries ranked in the Arab region.

The score has been steady for the past two years and reflects the lack of reforms due to the political stalemate in the country, the LTA study said. 

The study notes that out of 17 “pillars” of the NIS framework that were analyzed, such as the executive branch, the legislature, civil society and the media, two pillars remain absent: the Ombudsman and a national anti-corruption agency. 

Lebanon has also fared badly on other indices that measure anti-corruption mechanisms. For instance, Lebanon’s overall rating on Transparency International’s Global Integrity Index for 2006 and 2007 was categorized as “very weak.”