The head of the Federation of Trade Unions and Employees in North Lebanon, Captain Shadi Al-Sayyid, said in a statement: “We in the Federation of Northern Workers have been monitoring developments in the port of Tripoli for more than 10 days, out of our belief that the Ministers of Finance and Works will take quick, productive and useful steps for the benefit of the port, but we are surprised that things are as they are and the containers are being transferred to Beirut and that the inspection of the goods in the containers is done in Tripoli manually, which requires… A lot of time and damage to the goods, in light of the officials and concerned parties’ disregard for the safety of these goods, which inflicts huge losses on merchants.”
He added: “The port of Tripoli seems to be being ignored by officials, and perhaps more than that, and we would like to draw everyone to the fact that the good intentions towards the city of Tripoli and the port in particular, which were announced from within the port by the government, headed by it and its ministers, have not been translated into reality, and today its work and recovery are threatened, while we aspired to increase traffic in it, not to its decline or damage.”
He continued: “Who wants the port of Tripoli to be closed, knowing that a number of northern merchants have begun transferring their containers to the port of Beirut in order to preserve its safety and to seek speed in removing their goods from the port precincts and begin trading in them inside Lebanon. Do we understand that there are those who want to close the port of Tripoli? What about the companies’ unfair and commercial behavior and the imposition of additional amounts on merchants?”
He added: “We warn that if the situation continues as it is, this will be followed by a move that may be the first of its kind because we believe, see and feel that Tripoli is the target, and if the promises that were given to us in the past were a distraction, procrastination or procrastination, then our answer will be in the street, and not in the Tripoli street of course, and we will perhaps be forced to close the doors of the Ministry of Finance with everything that this means and everything that this entails.” “The matter.”
He concluded: “We turn to His Excellency the President of the Republic, General Joseph Aoun, whom we trust and whose person we respect, saying: His Excellency the President promised us fairness, prosperity and raising the level of all regions. Therefore, we turn to you confident that you will listen to us before we are forced to take steps that we do not want to be involved in. In conclusion, we ask about the positions of the Prime Minister that he launched from inside the port of Tripoli and the painful and regrettable reality that followed in “The harbour.”
