Translated by: Zeina Nasser
Indeed, the discovery of imported household utensils, or other devices and materials, intended for widespread consumption, which are contaminated with the radioactive isotope “Cobalt 60”, or other hazardous pollutants … is an extremely dangerous and important issue affecting the lives of the Lebanese people. Of course, it requires a serious and responsible follow-up at all levels. Today, we hear about the covers for smart phone devices, an issue that is spread widely in Lebanon, but these covers are also contaminated with the substance thorium 232, whose radioactivity exceeds the acceptable rates. No one knows if there is a longer list, of goods intended for widespread consumption, which reach the country contaminated by radioactive isotopes of every type and kind.
In the recent days, we witnessed the government’s awakening, which suddenly opened its eyes after decades of blindness, and faced dangerous and scary facts, to the health and safety of the Lebanese. We heard the Ministers demanding accountability and follow-up, along with penalties to those responsible for the breaches and violations, knowing that the known violations so far have been highlighted.
In this horrific celebration, we must talk about the responsibility of the state, and that of the successive governments, and this government in particular, especially its concerned ministries, which are involved in the failure, the coma, and the legislative and institutional corruption, and the weakness of the human resources, that are qualified in the state’s departments, ministries, institutions, and entire organs. Also, we must study your responsibility regarding the providing of the structural, technical, administrative, and legislative power of the state, in order to apply its primary duties in the monitoring, and the protection of the Lebanese citizens of the futility of chaos, and the criminal game of mafias, which in turn are careless and unforgiving.
We must also discuss the corruption in the import market, which is left without any serious and effective monitoring, and is full of corruption and bribery. Planting your men and followers in all state institutions, under whatever name, employee, contractor, etc… and all forms of circumventing the Employment Laws and their “Shahab” procedures, and your violating them, especially when you intervene in them at certain times, and when you refer to them in very rare cases; that is when you divide the quotas on the basis of clienteles, nepotism, and sectarianism, instead of relying on the competency and reliability. The State and its management have been destroyed, and have become full of lethargy, corruption and bribery, with the exception of the very few honest people, who languish and suffer the psychological effects during their steadfastness in the job. All this is based on the discovery of corruption, which shocked you, and put the lives of the citizens under various types of risks and threats.
The idleness of the state and its resignation of its monitoring responsibilities, and the continuation of weakening the structure of its departments, and plundering its resources, and its inability to enforce the laws, and to monitor the implementation of the legislations and regulations, has thrown us to the mafias, and to those searching for savage Profit, regardless in what way they gain it.
Dear gentlemen, countries are not built on the basis of blind trust and the lack of morals, or on the corrupt values in the practice of the market’s economy, which lacks the required control, and the interference in the laws. They are not built by taking away the country’s right to exercise its prior censorship, and to provide protection for its citizens. Today, we invite you to hold accountable all the offenders and all the criminals that are harming the citizens, along with their food, health, and safety.
Of course, they deserve the maximum penalties, and you must pay serious attention to the restructuring of your ministries, and to promoting them with the necessary human resources, and the qualified and adequate institutional development, along with the development and modernization of the laws, and enriching your standards and regulations, and preparing your prior and subsequent monitoring institutions, and establishing them in the aspects where they are still absent, with all the devices they require, which allows them to carry out their duties without any intervention. There is no national interest of your screaming, if it was not accompanied and followed up by all of these procedures; surveillance is your primary duty, and it is not a luxury you deem irrelevant, the world’s most reputable countries will witness corruption if they one day balked from practicing their prior censorship and protection, and from applying the law on everyone.
