Minister of Economy Amer Al-Bassat made statements to the National News Agency in which he stressed the existence of a national consensus regarding the wages of workers in the public sector, especially members of the armed forces, considering that “the sacrifices made by the military sector do not match their salaries and the matter must be fixed.”
Al-Bassat also explained that “increasing salaries has a huge cost to the state ($800 million), which is forced to secure revenues,” pointing out that “raising expenses without securing revenues creates an economic crisis and increases inflation and pressure on the lira.”
He stressed that “the first line of defense to secure revenues is first to improve collection and combat tax and customs evasion, in addition to re-evaluating fines on land and sea properties and crushers.” However, he pointed out that “the revenues from all of these matters are not sufficient to cover the cost of the increases,” and said: “Therefore we decided to go to the second line of defense, which is to impose a tax on gasoline and raise the value-added tax (TVA).”
He stressed that “the tax on gasoline raises prices, but not in the way that is being talked about,” noting that “the Ministry of Economy is on the lookout to prevent some merchants from exploiting this matter and raising prices randomly,” speaking about “steps taken by the Ministry in this area, such as intensifying the tours of Ministry of Economy observers and imposing fines on violators and referring them to the judiciary.”
Al-Bassat pointed to the continuation of oversight tours, stressing that he himself conducts field tours. He added that since the beginning of the year, the Ministry has carried out 1,500 rounds, which resulted in issuing less than 100 arrest reports.
He revealed that the Ministry held a series of meetings and contacts with those concerned with the food and basic commodities file, and a pledge was obtained from the unions of supermarkets, bakeries, and importers to maintain the currently prevailing prices, stressing “not to allow taxes to be exploited to raise prices.”
He explained that “the government measures were necessary for a moral reason related to the salaries of employees and military personnel,” stressing “work to not allow these measures to lead to unjustified high prices,” noting that “the Ministry of Economy’s observers are on the lookout and are working diligently to prevent price increases.”
Minister Al-Bassat acknowledged that “there is an increase in prices in Lebanon and there are complaints in this area,” but he announced that he did not notice “a significant increase in prices following the imposition of new taxes, although there are some complaints about some merchants exploiting this matter to raise prices, but we are looking out for them.”
Regarding the salary increase that was linked to the approval of the TVA tax, he said: “In the end, it is the House of Representatives that approves the increase and the tax and can decide to separate them, but if the increase is approved without the TVA, this will lead to a deficit.”
Regarding the proposal to adjust the exchange rate of the dollar to become 60 thousand pounds, Al-Bassat explained that “the decision on the exchange rate is up to the Bank of Lebanon,” indicating that “the matter is related to securing dollars in order to fix the exchange rate at a rate lower than the current price,” and he asked: “Are there enough dollars? And if we use the dollars we have, these dollars will return to the depositors.”
As for restructuring the public sector, he pointed out that “the number of public sector employees is less than 9,000 employees. In the Ministry of Economy, for example, there is a vacancy of 93%,” stressing that “restructuring the public sector is very important, but not by laying off employees, especially in the military sector, which is very important for national security, and in this period we need to increase their numbers.” On the other hand, he stressed “the necessity of restructuring state departments and institutions and merging some ministries, but not at the expense of employees who are unfairly considered unproductive.” Overall.”
