The bribes between the bricks

"Of course, there is no bribery in Lebanon, there is no bribery in this office,” quipped the official at the finance ministry’s Directorate of Cadaster and Real Estate (DCRE), where property owners in Beirut register their deeds. The wry smile and wink before adding, “no seriously, we have no comment,” belied the accusations of endemic corruption among the laws and bureaucracy that fashion the nation’s construction sector.  As the villages, towns and cities metamorphose to fashion the future residential, commercial and industrial face of Lebanon, exorbitant amounts of money are being made. The construction sector has grown immensely over the years and today comprises some 15 percent of the Lebanese economy, double what it did in 2003, with yearly volumes peaking at $9.5 billion in 2010. Deciding what is built, for whom it is built and where it is built has a profound impact on the country’s social, environmental and