Where is the private sector?

The Higher Council for Privatization (HCP) was created nine years ago; since then there have been no successful privatization programs, and after six years the public-private partnership (PPP) law is still gathering dust in Parliament. Executive challenged the Secretary General, Ziad Hayek, to find out why his office still exists.     Has the HCP failed in its mission? We have not made any privatizations so in some way you could say we have failed. However, I would like to say that the HCP is not a corporate entity that has a legal identity of its own. It is a permanent ministerial committee, so it is not an entity that can succeed or not succeed in what it is doing. We are an arm of the Council of Ministers [Lebanon’s cabinet] that assists in carrying out their decisions regarding privatization. Some council ministers have been pro-privatization while others have been against.