Cometh the hour in Lebanon, cometh a man on a mission

Anxious Lebanese wonder if they live in a death trap or whether they have a few more years before they need worry about the long-term effects of crumbling masonry.

Fadi Abboud, the Lebanese tourism minister, outlined his blueprint for economic recovery in a newspaper article. Cynthia Karam / Reuters

The impact of last week's building collapse in Beirut, in which 27 people died, continues to reverberate.

Anxious Lebanese rub their chins wondering if they live in a death trap or whether they have a few more years before they need worry about the long-term effects of crumbling masonry.

Their predicament could very easily pass as a metaphor for Lebanon.

The country has not (yet) collapsed but the foundations are alarmingly creaky.

Prices are rising, public services are getting worse and, this week, the World Bank predicted Lebanon would post "the highest current account deficit this year among developing economies and the third-highest level of debt repayment in the developing world".

The worst of times? Maybe. They definitely aren't the best.

Still, cometh the hour, cometh the man, and on Monday Fadi Abboud,the tourism minister, set out his blueprint for economic recovery in an article in The Daily Star.

Before tackling specifics, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) politician began by debunking the socialist model. "It is impossible to strip the wealthy of their prosperity and redistribute it to the poor," he wrote, pointing out government resources were "limited" and that it was up to the many "layers" of society to generate their own wealth.

Mr Abboud knows from first-hand experience that the Lebanese, from all "layers of society" are no slouches in making a bob or two (indeed one could make a strong case for arguing that the business community has become a crutch for a public sector that has fallen apart) so why the detour into free-market thinking?

My guess is it was a carefully aimed barb at his party colleague, the labour minister Charbel Nahas, an economist with thinly disguised leftist tendencies who has been campaigning for a near doubling of the minimum wage.

One gets the impression the motive behind Mr Abboud's composition was to stake out a clear position on where he feels his bumbling government should be heading.

He has the pedigree. Mr Abboud is a successful businessman and the former head of the Association of Lebanese industrialists, a body that knows better than most the frustrations of dealing with the state.

He is also by all accounts a patriot, a man who in October 2008 filed a lawsuit against Israel for trying to pass off traditional Lebanese food - falafel, tabouleh and hummus and the like - as its own. As tourism minister, given his limited budget, he has made a decent fist of it.

New ideas however are clearly not Mr Abboud's strong point.

One of the pillars of his argument is founded on the long held belief that Lebanon can become a "regional hub, and he dutifully trots out all the threadbare cliches to back this up. He argues Lebanon has a skilled workforce that can "attract investment from abroad and turn the nation into a solid contender on the global stage". It has a "stable currency" (excuse me?) and "strategic geographic positioning" (whatever that means) that can make it "a serious competitor to any nation in any sector of industry and all service sectors". That last bit verges on the delusional, especially as to achieve global domination Mr Abboud admits Lebanon has to get rid of "one of the most inefficient governing systems on the planet".

He is widely regarded as a decent fellow so why did he throw in his lot with a political clique that cares not a jot for Lebanon's long-term economic health. The FPM is part of the ruling March 8 coalition, which is pro-Syrian and led by the Iranian backed Hizbollah, a party whose core business is biffing Israel. Other members include people you are unlikely to see in Davos.

Like many disillusioned Christians, Mr Abboud probably joined the FPM because of a noble anti-corruption agenda and now his frustration is beginning to show at his party's inability to assert itself within March 8. It is significant that many of his suggestions are aimed at the government in which he serves.

Michael Karam is the associate editor-in-chief of Executive, a regional business magazine published in Lebanon

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