Is it a crisis in judgment, government or management? Or is it quotas, interests, and mechanisms of action dilemma for the conduct of a public utility, in which it is subject to the logic of the Constitution and laws? Or is it a crisis or a bankruptcy of the system and of the structure of ruling? Or is it a case of blasphemy of all customs and laws, for the only logic prevalent nowadays is that of the jungle and the farm? Many questions and they lead to one clear answer, “there’s no state in Lebanon”!!! Today, wastes sector follows the previous track of the electricity sector, and the phone and communications sector will follow on the same route. And while the Lebanese, have adapted themselves to the lack of electricity as another normal thing in day-to-day life, and managed this issue via a personal generator or an account in a common generator, or other methods; similar is the case of internet, they are also used to the line failure from the internet provider or due to the distribution of packets, in the same context, why the minister of communications -and for some unknown reason- has not activated the fiber optic network communications which were ready since more than a year and a half? On the same level the Lebanese will have to get used to the reality that their government and their various political leaders have decided to enter into the market of wastes management and to establish their own private companies to share the presumed yield. On the other hand, their government has not accomplished anything in a year and a half to present any of the awaited solutions. On the contrary it has presented the worse waste management request for tender, devoid of the minimum scientific and environmental and even legal standards that prevent the entry of any normal company to this field, also it requires that the committed company to provide a designed landfill which was unattainable by the government or failed to provide. Hence the government has presented a formal request for tender, where quotas were imposed so companies were forced to turn to the so-called leaders to be able to secure the landfill, or in other words, the government has given the so called “leaders” the right to establish companies or to contact companies that provide the administrative services only. As for financial violations, they are endless, and the contractor has to provide the landfill and to estimate the distance and the resulting cost of daily trips for trucks as well, which requires a miracle in the making to estimate the costs and other important data. Today the country is exposed and subject to everything with no solutions in the near future. And the minister is bragging about the success of the bidding process, while the problem is not in the act of sweeping or gathering the garbage but in the providing of a landfill. In the meantime, negotiations are taking place under waste flames, and people will be forced to pay the price twice, the first in the odors and the diseases that will result out of this, and secondly in the cost and the mechanisms of action. Subsequently the (self-proclaimed) “knight in shining armor” (whom we all know) will emerge and provide the landfill, since his quota has waned compared to other political leaders, but will eventually increase because he’s the one to provide an exit no one else can or could. Until then, take a look at Green Lebanon’s roads, sponsored by the government’s strategic environmental plan!
