Lebanese government wastes millions of dollars on unlawful recruitment amid country collapse

In a time of economic collapse, millions of dollars are being wasted on salaries for random recruits.

In 2017, the Parliament passed the new salary brackets and prohibited new hiring in public administrations. However, in the run-up to the 2018 elections, some political parties and factions broke the law for political favors.

According to a 2019 report from the Central Inspection, the state unlawfully hired 7,549 new employees, which defied the law, and they were regular employees and not managers.

They were distributed among different government departments, including 3,305 employees in the Education Ministry and 453 in Ogero, which the General Director of Ogero admitted were distributed among political parties as well as another number of employees in more than one governmental and official department.

In the Education Ministry and the rest of the departments, an employee's salary is between seven million and nine million LBP today.

The average wage is around eight million LBP for each employee. Thus, 7,549 employees were unlawfully recruited, which still cost more than 60 billion monthly.

These employees will receive their salaries this month at the Sayrafa exchange rate of LBP 60,000, meaning that one million dollars will go to these employees, who had been recruited due to political favors.

In conclusion, we pay about one million dollars per month to employees violating the law.

However, this amount would have secured a lot of life's necessities every month, such as internet, electricity, water, and additional dollars in the markets.

Moreover, this scenario robs us daily. Why are these people still in their workplaces and not being dismissed, knowing that most public administrations suffer due to continuous strikes? They get paid without even working.