Members of the Lebanese government on Tuesday, October 12, started a conclave to develop and discuss a vision on a rescue and action plan for the country as a whole and the economy in particular, according to official sources.
The Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc convened the conclave at the monastery of Saint John the Citadel in Beit Meri, said the sources.
“We are meeting today to talk about tomorrow and what we are going to do to preserve and honor our past. We are working for our youth and children, to keep this country for them,” said bloc head MP Gebran Bassil at the opening of the conclave.
“We were handed a country that was occupied and under tutelage, and whose sovereignty was incomplete. We are working on rendering it a free, sovereign, and independent country,” he added.
“We were handed a destroyed and corruption-swept country, with rentier economy and bankrupt finances. We must free it of corruption and [establish] a productive economy,” he went on to say.
Bassil continued: “We meet today as people wait for new solutions to end all the crises. That is why we have to study the ideas, projects, and laws that help us overcome the plight. We do have solutions, plans, and legislations, but unfortunately, we do not have the ability to implement them alone.”
Pertaining to the next stage’s priorities, Bassil said they include five axes: financial recovery and the needed legislations, social security, the reform of public finances and ending corruption, the truth behind the Beirut port blast, and the parliamentary elections.
Lebanon is currently experiencing possibly the worst economic crisis in the world, with fuel shortages having reached such peaks where the entire country went dark without electricity for a little while recently.