Hezbollah MP links garbage crisis to war decisions

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raad  mohammadHezbollah parliamentary bloc leader MP Mohammed Raad linked on Sunday the ability to resolve the garbage crisis to war and peace decisions.

During a speech that he delivered in the southern town of Ain Qana he stressed that political parties that are not being able to “resolve the waste management crisis” cannot ask to have a say in the country’s war and peace decision.

“Is it reasonable that a country in the world cannot find a solution to its garbage crisis?” asked Raad .

“The crisis only exists in Lebanon, and the reason is that there is a crisis of splitting shares and the presence of greed and rottenness inside state institutions,” the MP added.

“The state is too weak to be able to address a garbage crisis,” he underlined.

Raad said certain political parties in the government are asking the people to grant them “an authorization for deciding war and peace with the Israeli enemy.”

“If you can’t resolve a waste crisis, how will you be able to resolve a war crisis or to confront the enemy that is backed by all countries in the world?” Raad asked.

Many in Lebanon blame Hezbollah for the weakness of the state. Ever since Israel withdrew its forces from south Lebanon in 2000, several political forces in Lebanon have accused Hezbollah of maintaining an “illegitimate” arsenal of arms and of monopolizing the decisions of war and peace.

The country’s politics caught up with it in the past month after authorities permanently closed down Beirut’s main landfill. The Naameh landfill south of Beirut had already been kept open for a year beyond its planned closure, in hopes that the government would find an alternative. It did not.

When the landfill closed July 17, Lebanon’s notoriously gridlocked government again failed to take action, leaving piles of smoldering rubbish baking in the sun in the streets of Beirut and its suburbs.

As temperatures rise and the country’s infamous electricity cuts worsen, the sweltering heat and the stinking, rotting garbage is provoking an outcry from Beirut’s two million residents.

“It is a scandal, and what is even a bigger scandal is the politicians who don’t feel the need to resign,” said Paul Abi Rached, the head of the Lebanese Eco Movement.

Despite a public outcry, very few have taken to the streets in protest. In typical Lebanese style, life has gone on, uninterrupted. But the situation may change as anger on the street mounts.

“Shame on them (politicians) and shame on us if we accept to live like this,” businessman Antoine Samaha said. His family was seriously considering taking his mother, who has asthma, to live with his brother in Paris. “Every decent Lebanese should protest this situation.”

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28 responses to “Hezbollah MP links garbage crisis to war decisions”

  1. Fauzia45 Avatar

    You do not want the others to have a ^say^,,,,,,!!!!!

  2. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    We RESIST your garbage, Raad. ALL of it. There’s a reason a businessman says: “shame on us if we accept to live like this,” … while he tosses his garbage and hires no women. The fact is that ‘citizens’ KNOW whatever they say passes by ALL politician’s ears, Raad. So they now RESIST listening to the garbage speeches, and must accept anything, because that’s just the way Lebanon has become … Thanks Raad.

  3. nagy_michael2 Avatar
    nagy_michael2

    anything to undermine the gov’t and unfortunately this S.O.B is part of the gov’t he criticizes. Why don’t your FPM ministers to discuss this in Parliament instead of General Roukoz? is it too much to ask? then you go around and blame the gov’t? why don’t show up to Parliament and vote for a president? Or you are happy with the status quo and the Chaos? stop terrorizing Lebanon we have had enough of your kind. I wish you and Al nusra, ISIS and aoun and the low lives leaves lebanon since you are traitors anyway and you only serve Iran interest. If Iran said elect a president they would convene immediately and vote for one..every descent Lebanese should protest the existance of raad and nassrallah and aoun and don’t forget tuti fruiti basil.

    1. Hind Abyad Avatar
      Hind Abyad

      I love your humour…always makes me laugh
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0etRSY9HMbw

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        I remember when I could dance like that TO that …. 😉

      2. nagy_michael2 Avatar
        nagy_michael2

        Thanks Hind that woke me up and i had a good laugh. i can always listen to Elvis lots of energy and good feelings when i hear his songs. but seriously i am really not as harsh as i sound here.
        I really do not care for majority of the leaders in Lebanon. they pretty much have not been nationalistic and patriotic as i want them to be. i am not talking M8 leaders here that goes for anyone in the M14 and others outside the parties. i wish all the parties were more Lebanese then listen to foreign interference with no exceptions. if hezbollah were to say to iran no were not going to fight your battles or tell Assad go shove it where the sun don’t shine. or Hariri tell the saudi get lost. but they need them and we like cling to them and embrace them and argue on their behalf as these guys ever cared about us or Lebanon for that matter. everytime we have some kind of something simple it turns out to be crisis and they make it that way for political reasons. the trash situation is out of control. don’t they have any respect for themselves and say lets work together together this situations out of control despite our political differences? i mean the FPM shows up at the parliament and they want to discuss appts. and nothing else. well fine but lets get rid of this trash out of the parking lots so they lebanese can breathe easily. don’t they know the world is looking at them? don’t they have any shame? don’t they owe the LEbanese public anything who are paying in blood to keep this gov’t alive.. yet you see them on TV all blondies and powdered faces as if there is nothing behind them. there are feces in the streets clean it up and stand up and take responsibility for your action. Enough of this garbage crisis. i just lost two lbs writing this blog because i am so angry..lol

        1. Hind Abyad Avatar
          Hind Abyad

          100% right they don’t respect themselves..tutti zbali and bubble gumvernment..
          I remember when you said..”It brought us ISIS and Zabada”..hhaha..

        2. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Pssst … Nagy … do you think I swayed her away from Mahler? A little? ;-))

    2. A couple of weeks ago while we were driving to Damascus for the Beit al-Qasid, a friend told me about the current Sukleen scandal that I have been too busy to have read about. Sukleen, for those who have never been to Lebanon, is the ubiquitous cleaning company that keeps the streets of Beirut so relatively clean. But first things first: it should be said that Sukleen does a terrific job. Its cleaners are constantly out cleaning, and as a result, Beirut is orders of magnitude cleaner than, say, Cairo. Not as clean as Holland or Singapore, but still, considering how much littering is being done here, they actually do a bang-up job.

      So what’s the problem? The issue is the contract, which has recently expired:

      While few would contest the quality of the service, the renewal of Sukleen’s contract with the Lebanese government has been at the core of a cabinet row over how much the Lebanese state should pay for its services. If March 14 ministers had their way, they would renew the contract without questioning it, but March 8 opposition ministers asked to see it before signing it.

      Currently, the terms of the deal between Sukeleen and the government are secret, as are the fees the company charges, despite the fact that they are paid from public money. Both opposition ministers and NGO workers who advocate for transparency find the situation unacceptable.

      …Rumor has it that Sukleen’s services are some of the most expensive in the world, but few people in Lebanon know for sure how much it costs to clean Beirut’s streets. Minister of State Jean Ogassapian, who is responsible for dealing with the contract, refused to speak to the media about it.

      Sukleen was founded in 1994 just before the cabinet signed a contract with Averda group, Sukleen’s parent company, which includes both Sukleen and Sukomi, a waste treatment company.

      Sukleen’s contract was renewed in 2006. However, it has since expired, and there is no consensus in the cabinet to renew it.

      Opposition ministers have been trying to get their hands on details of the contract between Sukleen and the state, but so far to no avail:

      March 8 ministers also demanded the government organize a public bidding process for awarding the contract, but the proposal was rejected by March 14 ministers. Prime Minister Saad Hariri argued that it is too late to look for another company because the contract with Sukleen has already expired. Hariri told ministers the company agreed to reduce the amount it is paid by 4 percent, but some members still insisted on examining the contract before approving it.

      Minister of the Displaced Akram Chehayeb said that the debate over Sukleen’s contract was political and raised by the March 8 ministers for political reasons.

      So let’s just get this straight here: the government has a no-bid secret contract for a huge (and likely hugely expensive) service, and when members of the opposition (not even the lowly public!) attempt to find out the basic details about the contract before agreeing to it, they are accused of being “political” by Chehayeb, who, surprise, surprise, was the environment minister when the original contract was signed.

      While not surprising, the lack of transparency here is flagrant. The question, then, iscui bono? In an unpublished paper documenting Lebanon’s extensive post-war corruption carried out by the Council for Development and Reconstruction, Reinoud Leenders, who has a forthcoming book on corruption in post-war Lebanon, quotes Maysara Sukkar, the owner of of Sukleen’s parent company, Averda Group (formerly known as Sukkar Engineering Group), as saying:

      Garbage is politics. […] You have to be close with the politicians when you enter that area and they want a service from you. Sukkar had to be close to Hariri because it is a waste management business where you have to be close to the government. [..]We are running a public service.

      Leenden also highlights the suspicious conditions surrounding the original contract with Sukleen:

      At the date of Sukleen’s foundation, 18 May 1994 (only a few months before it received its first contract), it had a start-up capital of US$ 20,000; extremely little for a company that was to run a multi-million dollar business requiring sizeable capital investments. One is left to wonder why the CDR had apparently no qualms in contracting a company that could not prove from its start-up capital nor track-record that it could carry out capital-intensive services in waste management. Figure taken from: Ort, Masri & Associées, Société d’Information Commerciale et Financière (Groupe Reuters), Company Profile Sukleen SAL.

      I’ve also heard rumors that the Hariri family is at least a partner in the Averda Group, but I haven’t been able to confirm that, and the company’s “who we are” page isn’t particularly forthcoming. So in a way, the March 14 politicians are right to say this is all politics, because apparently, garbage is politics in Lebanon. Or is it the other way around? this is an article from 2010. “The Human Province”.

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Ahhh .. Sense finally … Thank you. And of course ALL PUBLIC MONEY should be scrutinized by ALL citizens, and the numbers WELL-known.
        Of course, not even politics is being done these days.

    3. Sami Gemayel

      Kataeb chief Sami Gemayel Wednesday accused the company managing Beirut and Mount Lebanon’s waste of stealing public money and blackmailing the country to renew its own contract.

      The newly elected party leader said Sukleen was using the recent garbage crisis as a way to enforce another extension of its 20 contracts, accusing it of being part of a “mafia.”

      “There is a company (Sukleen) that has been making profits in the hundreds of millions of dollars over more or less 20 years on the expense of the Lebanese and the municipalities, and thus on the expense on the daily livelihood of all citizens,” said Gemayel, at the beginning of an impassioned speech.

      “With utmost rudeness, after it made these huge amounts of money, this company stopped collecting garbage the moment its contract ended.”

      He said stopping garbage collection was a “strategy” used by Sukleen to spread panic and convince the public that its contract should be renewed.

      “They said: ‘Let the Lebanese drown in garbage, what’s the problem with that? The important thing is to keep the status-quo,’” he said, in reference to Sukleen.

      “This practice of extortion should have stopped long time ago,” the Kataeb cheif said, adding that the company used this strategy every time the country was about to issue a call for tenders.

      1. nagy_michael2 Avatar
        nagy_michael2

        I am not defending it one way or another. all i can say I have not heard anything from M8 politicians accusing the company. Since I am in the U.S. then unless i hear about it from Lebanese newspapers i cannot tell. second when the ministers to talk about the garbage crisis, the FPM kept interrupting the discussion and wanted to talk about appts. but its sukleen as you say then i hope the gov’t hires another contracting company and tell them to shove it up their ass. but the gov’t cannot meet because some M8 ministers do not want to discuss it. so you can blame al mustaqbal all you like but again to what i am hearing in the news i have not heard one single ministers accusing al Mustaqbal of any wrong doings. all i can say they point fingers but not direct ones. so how shall i analyze this situation then?

        1. You know why? Don’t talk about me and I won’t talk about you. It’s a circus. But it’s not their fault. It’s the people for accepting it.

          1. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            And that is because everyone insists on turning ANY ‘technical’ problem into a Religious Equation … as if there’s a ‘rule’ in ‘the good books’ about handling electricity and garbage. Or filtering water in and out.
            All in all, verifiably, a mass insanity. Confessional Stupidity.

          2. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            A ‘Circus Macabre’ in many ways … and the audience participates. 😉

          3. nagy_michael2 Avatar
            nagy_michael2

            I totally agree and i am not forgiven when it comes to those crisis no matter where its generated from. thank you for taking the time to research it and write about it. All i know is then Sammy and others need to come forward and directly accuse the Mustaqbal of it plain and simple. they all need to stop playing hide and seek. But again the ministers tried to meet to discuss the garbage crisis and FPM wanted to discuss the appts. so what do you make of that? and If Raad who is always straight when it comes to threats and he will make one when he needs too. didn’t say a word about Sukleen. and yes if the people are accepting it then let them live with it. but they burn tires even if Nassrallah farts. so why aren’t they burning tires now?? makes you wander.

          4. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            Don’t need the extra pollution this time? ;-))

          5. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            Sukleen means Sookleen or Kleensuk?

          6. nagy_michael2 Avatar
            nagy_michael2

            one more thing instead of Aoun Supporters marching to protest the appts. they need to protest against Hariri and make him look very bad and whoever is behind this trash crisis. they need to compromise on a fair price for the contract otherwise ministers have obligation to the people go out there and make Hariri the villain then. do not just sit there and shoot ya rabi tiggi biainou..

          7. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            With all the Saudi money, Hariri can’t resolve this?

          8. nagy_michael2 Avatar
            nagy_michael2

            I am slow sometimes but i see where is this heading. hariri and al mustaqbal trying to force the election of the president else keep the trash in your backyard..so as you say playing politics with trash. in the meantime the people are suffering because the bastards in M8 and M14 do not wish to come to a resolution to vote for a president and tell sukleen to shove it up ass their asses.

          9. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            In France the People go to the streets to protest..

        2. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Try to discover all the ‘speeches’ as Dateam has done? There was one story in here that mentions that ‘collecting company’ … if you saw Tripoli you would wonder where they do collecting. (locals pile it in front of ‘Christian’ apartments)
          There are 3 factors.
          One – the need of a ‘dump site’. The one that was being used has filled up to recommended maximum. Government is supposed to ascertain a ‘next’ safe dump site.
          Two .. A ‘temporary storage yard’ owned by Sukleen – which is not (apparently) separating recyclable material from the garbage … amazing if one considers recycling is a viable business everywhere … and it has filled up. (they say)
          Three – the fact they DID stop collecting instantly on end of contract, although there seems no Government around to accommodate the fact – and both Sukleen and Government did not set up ‘collecting/dividing’ spots for people to do their own sorting and disposal at. Very little warning, of something long in coming.
          The country doesn’t function.

        3. Hind Abyad Avatar
          Hind Abyad

          They don’t dare accuse the company.. it’s huge, politicians must have shares.
          http://www.constructionweekonline.com/article-20493-averda-and-seche-environnement-sign-waste-deal/

          1. nagy_michael2 Avatar
            nagy_michael2

            I totally agree darling..

          2. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            :)..Sukleen: Hiding Behind a Glamorous Facade
            http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/5610

            Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk Tuesday rejected a preliminary decision by Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim to form a technical committee to investigate waste treatment companies Sukleen and Sukomi.
            http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2015/Jul-28/308669-lebanon-interior-minister-denounces-decision-to-probe-waste-company-sukleen.ashxhttp://

  4. Intouchable Avatar
    Intouchable

    “The Stink of Greed: In Naples, Waste Is Pure Gold” (2008)
    If there is one thing that stinks even more than the garbage dumps and mountains of trash in Beirut, it’s the self-righteousness of politicians in the region.

  5. libnan1 Avatar

    The only solution to all Lebanon’s problems is to have the Great as the ultimate dictator.

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