L'orient le jour - Corruption remains rampant in Lebanon, transparency organization warns, June 14 2012

BEIRUT: Corruption is as widespread as ever, say leaders of the Lebanese Transparency Association, as they launch their latest campaign to put corrupt officials under a higher level of public scrutiny.

They warned that very little progress has been made to curtail some of the most worrying ailments of Lebanon’s national and local governance, which include nepotism, cronyism and embezzlement.

“Political authorities continue to ignore the calls of civil society in favor of a better governance of the public sector. And political and administrative corruption is as widespread as ever,” the association announced in a press release this week.

“Hardly a week passes without our politicians having the impudence of throwing at each other accusations that could apply to them in the first place,” the group’s announcement said.

The LTA has worked for over a decade to combat corruption and promote transparency in a country that has never had a fully functioning government accountable to its people.

The new campaign hopes to improve on the past by putting new levels of pressure on corrupt actors and the people that enable them.

The LTA said it has dropped its policy of ignoring individual corruption cases, in a bid to move toward “naming and shaming” or exposing government wrongdoing.

The new stance comes from “the absence of will of reform on the part of the political class, which is only in agreement to plunder the public money,” the association said.

LTA board member Ibrahim Tabet said the organization’s new push would include a media campaign, entitled “time to wake up,” that tries to raise the profile of the anti-corruption fight.

The campaign will also include a government petition, a demonstration in front of Parliament, and the establishing of journalism and social media awards to recognize anti-corruption work. The group said it would revamp its Web presence to better connect with the online community.

Transparency International ranks Lebanon as 134th out of 183 countries on their perceptions of corruption index, with a score of 2.5 out of 10, a level considered very corrupt. The country is perceived as the 13th most corrupt in the region.

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