HOW MUCH TIME DO WE HAVE LEFT?????????????????????????
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What I don't understand about my compatriots is their total indifference toward all that is happening in their country. Debt wise, ours is well past $75 billion dollars today and is expected to reach $82 billion dollars by year end. That amount is expected to double by the year 2022 to reach $159 billion dollars. In the meantime we have to put up with a crumbling infrastructure, and poor governance.

 So, under such circumstances, what are we reasonably expected to do? In any ordinary country the citizens when made aware of these facts would have called for the removal of the entire political caste and its replacement by more responsible individuals. Unfortunately the citizens in Lebanon prefer to waste time arguing over insignificant matters and leaving the essential problems unresolved. They ignore the fact that the clock is mercilessly ticking away. Soon, we shall reach the point of no return, when it will be too late to react. Poor Lebanon!

Do I have to put the finger, once more, on the wound? Do I have to point out that, in practically all the domains of our governance: our crumbling infrastructure, our highly endangered environment, our poorly performing social services, our poorly supported industry and agriculture, we badly need money to revive and reform these sectors.

But money is the resource that has been, too often, unavailable during the past two decades. How else can we explain the indifference of the past and present governments to our national plight and their refusal to implement the dozens of plans and reform projects that lie in the archives of O.M.S.A.R.?

But why would money be unavailable, some people would ask? The answer is simply because public money was not used the right way. To top it all we have managed, in two decades alone, to build up a $75 billion Debt that would take us a similar length of time to pay back, should we decide to adopt a well thought out redemption plan. Failing that, our Debt will reach soon some dangerously high levels that risk bankrupting the country along with its five million citizens.

Gentlemen of the Lebanese Government, is it not high time to stop for a moment and ponder over those facts? If what I have written above is false and can be proven so, I am ready to apologize and refrain from opening this subject ever again. The graphs and table below indicate clearly what actually occurred during the past two decades and suggest ways to reverse course during the next twenty years. Why don’t you let your experts study them and attempt to identify the flaws in them. If I erred somewhere, let them tell me so and I shall deeply apologize. But if some of these facts cannot be denied, I beg you to take action to reverse course and inform the citizens accordingly.

I suggest that you discuss these matters with the leaders of the eighth and the fourteenth of March, and come up with a joint Plan of Action to rescue the country and its citizens. After all, what can be more important than survival?