On the first day of duty, the Lebanese New Finance Minister, Yassine Jaber, sat at her desk, reading a report on a color coded on the hard condition of the Ministry’s operations. Almost everything is marked in an alarming red.
The computers were old decades – some still ran to Windows 98. As well as most of the governmentThe ministry relied on the mountains of paper records, allowing the disfunction and corruption of Grimir.
“Things can’t go on as they are,” he sighed.
To improve how this is being driven, Lebanon needs money. But in order to attract money, he has to improve how it is done: for years, he has failed to take the deletion of the financial and management overhaul needed to unlock billions in international financial assistance that is required to resolve weaken economic crisis.
Now this support is even more critical after a devastating 14-month war between Israel and Hezbollah, an Iranian militia who has long kept political strength in this tiny Mediterranean country. The fragile truce is held, but large parts of Lebanon are in ruins. Hezbollah remained torn and cannot pay for the renewal. Lebanon’s new government He can afford a “honestly no” bill, said Mr. Jaber.
Foreign donors keep the key to recovery of Lebanon, but in order to fulfill their demands, the state must do what it has never done before: to take painful economic and structural changes, while facing the thorny question of Hezbollah’s weapons.
“Foreign assistance is not just a charity organization,” said Paul Salem, Vice President of the International Arrest at the Institute of Middle East in Washington. “It will not give billions and billions of dollars, unless their position is respected.”
The total damage and economic loss of war is estimated at $ 14 billion, and Lebanon needs $ 11 billion to renovate, the World Bank said this month, making a conflict to the most devastating country since the Long Civil War, which ended in 1990.
“It is very important to start renovation quickly; people sleep in tents. You have a whole part of Lebanon paralyzed,” said Mr. Jaber that day in his office last month. “Everything is a priority today.”
The devastation agreed on the economic troubles of the country, which began in 2019 when its financial system crashed under the burden of state debt. This triggered a sovereign default setting and urged banks to impose informal control of capital, leaving many libanonies with their life savings frozen.
Lebanon has reached a draft financing agreement with the International Monetary Fund 2022, which was charged as a rescue trace for the country but was conditioned by changes, including solving poor management and restructuring of its financial sector. The government failed to deliver, interfered with the downtime and assigned the interests of the political elite of the country.
“Lebanon has to start helping himself,” Mr. Jaber said. “How is that done? Starting showing the right action.”
Mr. Jaber spoke with the New York Times the day after the new Libanon government received a confidence vote This is politically put on the side of Hezbollah. Mr. Jaber, who is now one of the most powerful figures in the country, holds reins on public consumption and is responsible for the efforts to restore and ensure foreign assistance.
Hezbollah’s protector, Iran, has strongly contributed to the renovation after the last great conflict between their group with Israel in 2006, but now he is mostly not willing for his own crisesanalysts said. The group is additionally isolated by the collapse of another ally, the Assad regime in neighboring Syria.
As a result, Hezbollah – so powerful before the war that it is considered widely considered a state in the country – cannot fund a renewal, said Mr. Jaber.
“It’s a different time,” he said.
Libanon has so far secured a pledge in the amount of $ 250 million to renovate from the World Bank, said Mr. Jaber, the initial loan that is part of a wider $ 1 billion fund that will provide donor countries, but is only 2 percent of what the World Bank says is that the country is needed.
Some experts ask the question of how fast the government can make systemic changes. President Joseph Aoun said he hoped a foreign aid would come a “step by step” as new policies were being implemented.
Adding uncertainty, international assistance can depend on more than just a financial overhaul. According to the terms of the Particular Agreement that ended the war in November, Hezbollah must also disarm – a task that could risk violence Between Hezbollah’s mainly Shiite supporters and local opponents. Experts said that the United States and the Gulf of Arab countries disarm the prerequisite for help on a large scale.
The Lebanese government promised to bring all weapons under control of the state, but it remains unclear how it would be exactly achieved, and if yes, when. Mr. Jaber did not comment on the disarmament of Hezbollah, but noted that the group was established by a political party with popular support and that his political role was not the point of argument.
Hezbollah remains a powerful military force, and some Lebanese officials excluded him forcibly disarmed him, hint at the negotiating settlement. Earlier this month, the leader of the group, Naim Qasses, implicitly rejected the idea that he would “resist” lay his weapons.
The Government is “bombed both requests: painful economic and financial reforms and the task of finance and the presence of Hezbollah,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, an older colleague from the Middle East Center Carnegie in Beirut. But, without financing, “you push the government and the president, without juice, to fill the most challenging goals.”
Hezbollah official officials insisted that the reconstruction should not be linked to overhauling requirements, fearing the loss of support if the renewal process is drawn, experts said. Almost 100,000 people were displaced in Lebanon, according to the United Nations, the vast majority of them from Hezbollah’s hearts in the south.
“The reform will take a long time,” Mr. Hage Ali said.
In search of the reassuring of Hezbollah supporters, Mr. Qassem, the group leader, promised a fee for each hit household of $ 12,000 and $ 14,000, intended to cover the cost of rent and replacement of furniture. But the procedure interfered with delays.
With Hezbollah to a large extent, the noise of diplomatic efforts to persuade foreign donors is underway. Lebanese officials met this month with a delegation of the IMF in Beirut, which Mr. Jaber said he had aimed at restarting the negotiations over the long-awaited saving package of the organization. A top European Union official said last month that Brussels will monitor conversations Assess whether Europe can offer your own financial assistance.
Immediate priority, said Mr. Jaber, appointed a central bank governor who can start reviving the banking sector in the country. Lebanon failed to appoint a successor since Riad Salameh stepped down from his role in 2023, facing accusations that he was leading The world’s largest ponzi scheme for monitoring the strategy that required more and more borrowings to pay creditors.
The new Lebanese new leaders also promised an external audit of all public institutions, part of a wider promise to break the corruption that has He had been tormented for a long time.
Mr. Jaber said he was hoping, but he acknowledged uncertainty before us.
“Where there is a will, there is a way,” he said. The Government faces the test “about their will.”
Dayana Iwaz contribute to reporting.
