Corruption in Lebanon: Absent Public Sector Employees Receive Monthly Salaries

Lebanon's public sector employees march through Beirut to demand the parliament to approve a new salary scale law which if passed means a significant wages increase, April 29, 2014. REUTERS/Sharif Karim

A recent announcement by Labora Foundation about thousands of state employees, who are currently paid by their institutions without attending to work, has again emphasized the spread of corruption in the country’s public sector.

The president of Labora Foundation, Father Antoine Khadra, confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat his earlier remarks, in which he said that about two thousand deceased employees were still receiving salaries from the state and more than 30,000 are getting paid without going to their duty stations.

Based on Khadra’s information, Minister of Finance in the caretaker government Ali Hassan Khalil sent a letter to the country’s financial prosecutor, demanding investigation into the matter and the adoption of the adequate measures.

Khadra noted that he was following up the case with Minister of Justice in the caretaker government, Salim Jreissati, and was preparing the relevant information and documents to submit them to the competent authorities.

Meanwhile, researcher at Information International, Mohammed Shamseddine, ruled out the possibility of the families of the deceased to receive salaries because of the documents usually required in such cases.

Consequently, any falsification of the documents cannot last more than few months, according to Shamseddine, who also stressed that the law allows the wife, the unmarried daughter, the divorced and the widow to receive the salary.

As for employees, who receive salaries without going to work, Shamseddine did not deny the existence of such cases.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat: “The number does not exceed three thousand employees, most of whom are party members. A high percentage of those constitute members of Amal movement and the Progressive Socialist Party.”

Those are employed in Parliament, the Council of the South and the Fund for the Displaced, according to the researcher.

Labora is a non-profit, non-governmental charitable organization. It was founded in April 2008 “to contribute to finding appropriate solutions to the problem of unemployment” as defined on its website.