Economics & Policy

An ignored but active union

by Marie Kostrz
written by Marie Kostrz

On January 25, 2015, the creation of a union for domestic workers was announced in Beirut. In an atmosphere teeming with excitement, more than 200 women who work in Lebanese homes — including nationals of Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Ethiopia — called for their basic rights to be respected. This union gives rise to huge hopes. “We are going to have more power to negotiate our working and living conditions,” says Rosa, a community leader for Nepalese domestic workers. (Rosa, like several other domestic workers interviewed for this article, requested that only her first name be used.) This determined and cheerful woman who has been in Lebanon for 11 years has a lot to tell about the way domestic workers are treated: she considers herself one of the “lucky ones,” despite the fact that she was locked in her employer’s house throughout her first two years in the country. “My boss was afraid that I would not come back,” she says. “I could only go out with her.”

The media coverage of the creation of the union highlighted the debate that exists around domestic workers’ living and working conditions. Hiring live in migrant housemaids has become a trend in Lebanon since the end of the Civil War. “The ‘demand’ for these workers, to live in [the home] with Lebanese families and perform most of the household duties, had always existed among the middle and upper classes. The difference of the 1990s, however, was the supplanting of Arab domestic workers with non Arab women, mostly from Asia and principally from Sri Lanka and the Philippines,” explains a report published in the European Review of International Migration in 2003 by Ray Jureidini, a professor of sociology who joined the Institute for Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University (LAU) in 2011.

[pullquote]“There isn’t much awareness of issues concerning domestic workers in our society”[/pullquote]

Lack of data

In 2014, according to the Ministry of Labor’s data, 43,284 domestic workers arrived in Lebanon and 155,161 others renewed their contracts. Most of these workers were from Ethiopia and Bangladesh, but other countries in Africa and South Asia also served as a source for the workforce. Yet this total figure of 198,445 domestic workers is not completely accurate: many domestic workers do not have legal status. There are thought to be around 250,000 migrant domestic workers in total, according to various NGOs supporting them that Executive spoke with. “Typically, the source countries are characterized by difficult socio-economic conditions where opportunities for women are limited and where gender roles are traditional. Many are caught between the option of watching one’s family starve and earning money in return for exploitation,” writes Jureidini.

A small number of studies have nonetheless been carried out on the subject by institutes and universities. “It is a very taboo subject in Lebanese society,” explains Kamal Hamdan, head of the Consultation and Research Institute (CRI). “There isn’t much awareness of issues concerning domestic workers in our society, so it is not a very dynamic field of research,” he adds. CRI has conducted a quantitative research study on migrant domestic workers for the International Labor Organization (ILO), which will be released in May 2015. “There is no relevant data about domestic workers in Lebanon, even the figures of the Central Administration of Statistics are not right because [some] households hide the presence of domestic workers at their home from investigators,” according to Hamdan. Researchers, he adds, can’t reach domestic workers easily. “Households often refuse to allow domestic workers to speak [to investigators], or they don’t talk freely, so we have to go to places on the weekend that these workers commonly visit. But in such a context, it is difficult to have a complete overview.” 

CRI interviewed 1,400 women, working mostly in Beirut and its surroundings. “We were surprised to see that sexual violence — often reported in media — isn’t such a widespread phenomenon, even if it does exist,” says Hamdan. The demands of these women, who “often work in infuriating conditions,” mostly concern “work conditions, acquiring vacation and the complicated relationship with the female member of the household.”

The above assessment is similar to the observation made by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a March 2015 news release. “The most common complaints documented by the embassies of labor-sending countries and nongovernmental groups include mistreatment by recruiters, non payment or delayed payment of wages, forced confinement to the workplace, a refusal to provide any time off, forced labor, and verbal and physical abuse,” wrote HRW. Furthermore, according to a report the organization published in 2010, the most common demand is unpaid wages, which 75 percent of Filipinos and 60 percent of Sri Lankans voiced complaints about. According to the report “Trafficking of Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon: A Legal Analysis” published by the NGO KAFA in 2011, monthly average incomes are very low. Whereas Sri Lankans are paid $180, Filipinos earn between $200 and $250, and Ethiopians get from $150 to $200. The Ministry of Labor told Executive that it does not have any data on domestic workers’ income.

“Domestic work is a form of work and it contributes to Lebanon’s growth,” says Rose, who has been a domestic worker in Beirut for 17 years and joined the new union. “I enable the wife of the household to go to work, because I do everything in her place: cooking, cleaning and taking care of kids. This is why we are asking for more protection and recognition.” The economic impact of domestic workers on Lebanese society has never been calculated in any report. Nonetheless, a study led by the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago published in 2012 underlines the link between better treatment of domestic workers and public good. Despite the different cultural and economic contexts, domestic workers in the United States face similar issues to those working in Lebanon, among them working hours, average wage and treatment. The exclusion of domestic workers from the United States’ 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act and the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which gives workers the right to form unions and bargain collectively, places them in a situation similar to domestic workers in Lebanon in some respects. According to the report, improving the work and living conditions of domestic workers would be beneficial for society: “Domestic work, though conducted in private homes, contributes substantially to the public good. Household labor is a lynchpin connecting the economics of the home and the economics of the workplace. By committing to improving domestic workers’ conditions of work, policy makers and employers — and indeed society as a whole — commit to building an economy based on dignity and care.”

[pullquote]With the kafala system, the domestic worker is indeed entirely dependent on her employer[/pullquote]

Vulnerability and dependence 

All reports agree that domestic workers are vulnerable to exploitation. “Although they may be voluntary economic migrants, they are often caught up in employment conditions that are mostly slavery like arrangements,” Jureidini says. With the kafala system existing in Lebanon, the domestic worker is indeed entirely dependent on her employer. This sponsorship system binds the worker’s residency exclusively to the employer, who is legally responsible for the employee. The employer has to pay $200 to obtain a residency permit for the worker from General Security and $160 for their work permit at the Ministry of Labor, according to the ministry. If the domestic worker leaves the employer’s home, for whatever reason, the worker becomes illegal. This arrangement is not written in the Lebanese law but belongs to a system of practices. “A decree published in 1964 says that a foreign worker cannot change their type of work without having the employer’s authorization; it has been interpreted to mean that the employer’s authorization is needed for change of employer too,” says Nizar Saghieh from The Legal Agenda, a NGO specializing in legal activism and reform. 

In such a context, which automatically places the employee in a situation of inferiority, workers have few choices but to accept the decisions of the employer. This is something that Clarence, a Madagascan domestic worker who has been working in Lebanon for 18 years, knows all too well. She still can’t have a day off every week: “According to the contract that I signed, I am supposed to have 24 consecutive hours off every week but my employer often invites friends for lunch on Sundays so I never have a whole day to rest,” she says, adding that for 14 years she did not receive as much money as the contract stipulated: “I was paid $110 instead of $125; my boss kept saying that she did not agree on this amount with the recruitment agency.” 

Recruitment agencies, a big business

The number of recruitment agencies has skyrocketed. According to Minister of Labor Sejaan Azzi, there are 627 such agencies spread all over the country. Amid the boom in domestic worker agencies, the president of the Syndicate of the Owners of the Workers Recruitment Agencies in Lebanon, Hicham Al Borji, told Executive that there are 200 illegal agencies in the country.

These recruitment agencies, contacted by Lebanese families, are in charge of finding a maid for their clients. In countries of origin, the recruitment process involves local intermediaries who arrange the trip with the recruitment agencies in Lebanon. Most of them are not transparent about the work and living conditions the women will have once they arrive in Lebanon. This economy is lucrative, especially when the employee is from a country which has banned its citizens from working in Lebanon as house workers because of the risks of bad treatment. “Families pay us around $4,000 for a Filipino maid and $1,700 for an Ethiopian one,” Borji says. “Bans issued by these countries have made prices increase; intermediaries want more money.” According to KAFA’s report quoted earlier, recruitment agencies pocket commissions going from $300 to $600, depending on the maid’s nationality. The large discrepancy between KAFA’s figures and those provided by Borji show just how expensive intermediary fees can be. No figures on wages were provided by the Ministry of Labor when requested by Executive.

There is no exhaustive regulation of recruitment agencies in Lebanon. The order issued by the Ministry of Labor on January 3, 2011 on the activity of agencies recruiting foreign workers is the only text that defines rules for private recruitment companies hiring domestic workers. “With a total of only 20 inspectors to cover all of Lebanon, it is hard to plan a control of information or field audits, which gives private recruitment companies an important decision-making power on the migrant domestic workers’ fate,” says the report “Access to Justice for Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon” published by the Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center (CLMC) and ILO. Azzi assures Executive that he has closed 35 recruitment agencies for bad practices since he became minister in February 2014.

Obstacles

The lack of legislation is not just limited to recruitment agencies. Domestic workers also suffer from a vast legal void. “Article 7 of the labor code excludes domestic workers,” says Abdel-Salam Cheaib, an attorney specialized in labor law. “They are only under the code of contract and obligations, it does not protect them as much as the labor code because there isn’t any mandatory article on income, working hours or against abusive dismissal.” 

“We need to have protection,” says Gemma Justo. This Filipino woman, who has been a domestic worker in Lebanon for 22 years, is part of the executive committee of the new union. “The law needs to be changed,” she adds. The union is demanding that Lebanon ratify ILO Convention No. 189 on Domestic Workers, which was signed in 2011 and sets labor standards for them.

[pullquote]“At the end they found out that they face the same issues irrespective of their nationality”[/pullquote]

Although announced with great pomp in January 2015, the union isn’t something new. It is the result of a long process that started in 2011 with the launch of the Action Program for Protecting the Rights of Women Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon (PROWD). In 2012, the Participative Action Research (PAR) was a step towards the union. “We invited the community leaders of the various nationalities of domestic workers who are present in Lebanon and built their capacity to mobilize participants to take part in the research and to facilitate the focus,” says Zeina Mezher, who was the manager of the PROWD project at ILO. “Every group shared its experience about their relationships with employers, the work and living conditions, recruitment and so on. At the end they found out that they face the same issues irrespective of their nationality.” PAR was led in collaboration with the National Federation of Employees and Workers Unions in Lebanon (FENASOL). Selected NGOs such as KAFA, Insan and the Anti-Racism Movement also took part in the process. “The objective of the research was to raise worker consciousness among women domestic migrant workers in Lebanon, building synergies between them, unions and NGOs; provide worker education to these workers; and increase their representation in the activities of the ILO and in the advocacy campaigns of NGOs and unions in Lebanon,” adds Mezher. The need to help create a union for domestic workers was something evident for ILO. “The work of ILO is to support workers and employers to have a voice for the matters which affect them, in order to have a structure for a tripartite dialogue,” explains Mezher. “In Lebanon, migrant domestic workers are in very vulnerable positions and their voice is completely absent.” In March 2014, the founding committee of the union was announced in the presence of Mounir Al Deek, an adviser at the Ministry of Labor, during an event co-organized by FENASOL and ILO. “Another layer of activity started after this date. The ILO provided capacity building training sessions empowering the members to act in solidarity and organize themselves and FENASOL brought its experience,” she explains. 

While the union has elected a president, Mariam al-Masri, and has an executive committee composed of 12 members and a general assembly with 20, it is still not registered by the Ministry of Labor. According to the Lebanese Labor Code, the registration of any union has to be approved by the minister. “We sent a request to register it,” says Castro Abdallah, head of FENASOL. A side of the story that the Minister of Labor Sejaan Azzi refutes. “No request has been filed. They just invited me to their party on January 25.” Yet, Executive has consulted the request written and sent by FENASOL to register the domestic workers union. According to the ministry’s stamp, it had been recorded on December 29, 2014. At the Ministry of Labor, the head of the control of foreign workers’ labor department Marlène Atallah said the request had been rejected. “We never had any answer as to why. If he does not agree, he should tell us frankly,” says Abdallah. 

This complex situation conveys Azzi’s opposition to the idea of a union for domestic workers. “The issue of domestic workers does not have to be solved by a union. They work with families which is a private issue. Imagine that you are with your boyfriend at home and an inspector rings your bell; we are not in a bank,” says Azzi. At ILO, Mezher hopes that the Ministry of Labor will come to see the union as an additional tool to get fair legislation that respects the rights of employers and workers.

To justify his opposition, Azzi invokes Lebanese law: “Foreigners are forbidden to create a union in Lebanon.” Indeed, in addition to article 7, article 92 of the labor code allows foreigners to join a union, but denies them the right to elect or be elected as representatives of a union. A law which the domestic workers’ union tries to circumvent. The president of the union is indeed Lebanese. Moreover, the union request which has been sent to the Ministry of Labor does not concern foreign workers only, as evidenced by its name: the General Union of Cleaning Workers and Social Care. However, other texts, higher according to the hierarchy of laws than the labor code, exist in Lebanon. “A commitment to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was integrated into the Lebanese constitution in 1990. Since the declaration stipulates everyone’s right to form and join trade unions, it is a right for any person on the Lebanese land,” lawyer Cheaib explains. “FENASOL could go to the State Council to break the minister’s refusal.”

[pullquote]“The more we are, the stronger we will be to gain more rights”[/pullquote]

Efficient without being legal?

“Even if we are not registered, the union is real. We will not give up,” shouts Rose, a member of the union and leader of the Cameroonian expatriate community. Without being registered, can the union be efficient in improving domestic workers’ rights? “We have around 350 domestic workers who are members of the union. Our aim is to have 700 members by the end of 2015,” declared Justo in a meeting on the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 8. “The more we are, the stronger we will be to gain more rights.” 

The union’s role is also to support workers. “In its current state, the union can empower members, educating them about their rights and providing conflict resolution tools in order for them to have more skills to solve the issues they have with their employers,” says the ILO’s Mezher. “We will soon start organizing trips around Lebanon to meet women who work in houses outside of Beirut,” says Rose. “It will take time, but we’ll do it step by step.” According to FENASOL’s Abdallah, the union already has seven lawyers who are providing legal support to members who have troubles with their employers. However, the biggest challenge seems to be money. “They help the union on a voluntary basis to advise domestic workers, but the union doesn’t have a real budget to expand its activities,” says Abdallah, noting that the union applied for EU grants to cover its expenses.

A devastated union landscape

Another question raised is whether unions have enough power to actually change things in Lebanon. “The union movement in Lebanon is very weak,” says Samir Farah, researcher at the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Beirut. “After the Civil War, ministers of labor gave lots of permissions to people to create unions. This strategy was aimed at strengthening allies of Syria who had a large control over Lebanon until 2005, it destroyed the union movement.” According to Farah, the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers (GCLW) gathers more than 600 unions, but is not representative of workers: “Only 7.5 percent of workers are members of unions, the leaders have been the same for decades, the democratic process does not work in these unions and they are not very active in fighting for people’s rights.” Unions today are more a tool of control for political parties. “They are more a way for them to establish their authority and put pressure on the legal system. For instance, a political party will bargain the vote of a law against the promise that a union that is affiliated to it will give up its demands,” says Michele Scala, PhD student at the Institut Français du Proche-Orient (IFPO) and author of the article “Clientelism and contestation: The example of the mobilization of Spinney’s workers in Lebanon”. 

In such a context, being an independent union is very hard. “The Minister of Labor has a two month period from the date he receives the request to approve or reject the union. During this time everything is done to discourage the workers. In the case of Spinneys, workers experienced transfers, threats and various sorts of pressure in order to [push] them to withdraw from the union,” says Scala — a situation close to that of the domestic workers’ union. While no threats have been reported, FENASOL, which fosters the new union, is known to be a quite independent union, with an effective democratic process. “[FENASOL head] Castro Abdallah is the only leader who is trying to change the status of the union in order to not be reelected [through limiting leadership terms],” Scala says. Without having any political support, it will be hard to be heard by the government. Even if their struggle is made harder by the Lebanese context, Scala thinks it is a positive trend to observe the creation of new unions outside of the GCLW’s influence. “It can be the emergence of a new union movement in Lebanon.”

Cheaib is more skeptical. “The 1946 and 1964 laws give some rights to union members, like the right to strike for 15 days, negotiation and protection against dismissal for representatives, but there is nothing in the Lebanese law which forces the government to initiate a dialogue with the unions,” the lawyer says. “In practice, it is much harder to gain rights for workers.”

[pullquote]“Politicians always say they have more important issues to solve and then the government resigns and we have to start again”[/pullquote]

Changing the law

According to Cheaib, changing the law is the only solution to improve domestic workers’ rights. At the Ministry of Labor, Atallah explains that initiatives are taken to protect the rights of domestic workers. “Social workers who have to deal with complaints of domestic workers are trained,” she says. “We also are working on memoranda of understanding between Lebanon and Ethiopia, the Philippines and Madagascar, where there are currently bans [against workers coming to Lebanon]. It will define a mandatory minimum income for workers of these countries coming to Lebanon.”

According to Joseph Aoun, lawyer at the CLMC, a law dedicated to the regulation of domestic work would be a great tool to move forward. The CLMC — which brings together several NGOs, representatives of various ministries, General Security and the Syndicate of the Owners of the Workers Recruitment Agencies in Lebanon — is part of the steering committee that worked on the draft law presented by then Minister of Labor Boutros Harb in 2012. The law was sent to the Council of Ministers but has never been referred to the Parliament. “Because of instability and lack of safety, politicians always say they have more important issues to solve and then the government resigns and we have to start again,” Aoun notes. Instability and political deadlock is not the only reason improvements have yet to be made. In 2011, then Minister of Labor Charbel Nahas tried to remove Article 7 and suggested a process aiming at canceling the kafala system. “A ministerial decree had to be voted on by the Council of Ministers, but they always refused to put it on the agenda in order to vote on it,” he says.

In December 2014, a new draft law inspired by the 2012 one was sent to the Council of Ministers by Azzi, without any consultation from the steering committee. Azzi summoned the committee to meet for the first time since he became Minister of Labor in February 2015, a few weeks after the announcement of the union. This draft law does not cancel the kafala system. The ministry is now passing the buck to NGOs which, according to Atallah, “have to do their work of lobbying in order for Parliament to vote on the law.” 

For the union, as for the law, domestic workers have still a long way before getting decent protection of their rights. But their members have not given up. In 2013 in South Africa, where domestic workers are also excluded from the labor law too, the national domestic workers union succeeded in getting the enforcement of the 2011 ILO Convention No. 189. An example that gives much hope to workers in Lebanon.

Editor’s note: As a direct result of the author’s interview with Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi, the ministry opened an inquiry into the labor practices of NewsMedia sal, Executive’s publisher.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Business

Something for everyone

by Nabila Rahhal
written by Nabila Rahhal

Mention Hamra Street in front of anyone familiar with Lebanon and they will surely have an opinion or story to share about one of Beirut’s most well known and cosmopolitan areas. Referred to as the “Champs Élysées” of the Middle East in the 1960s and early 1970s, this street has played a role in influencing Beirut’s culture and hospitality life and continues to do so today, despite the ups and downs the country, and the street itself, have been through.

Hamra back in the day 

Once a calm residential area with a few villas and vast lands for planting owned by Beiruti families (such as the Itanis, Chatilas, Bikhazis, Rubiez’s), Hamra Street emerged on Lebanon’s social map with the establishment of Cinema Hamra in the late 1950s, which was followed by a quick succession of other cinemas and theaters such as Eldorado, Strand, Saroulla and Élysée in the 1960s. In parallel to this influx of theaters, there was a surge of sidewalk cafes or café trottoirs (Wimpy, Café De Paris, Negresco) in the late 1950s and early 1960s following the opening of Horseshoe Cafe. 

At the same time that Hamra was undergoing this boom, the regime overthrow in Iraq in 1958 and the unification of Syria and Egypt in 1958 until 1961, brought many of these countries’ intellectuals to Lebanon and mainly to Hamra Street which, because of its proximity to the American University of Beirut (AUB), provided an intellectual ambiance for them to share their thoughts. 

[pullquote]“At the time in the 1960s, Hamra was the ‘in’ place of Beirut or the brand new image of Beirut with its café trottoirs and theaters”[/pullquote]

Hamra rapidly became a destination in Beirut, attracting Lebanese, Arab and international tourists alike. “At the time in the 1960s, Hamra was the ‘in’  place of Beirut or the brand new image of Beirut with its café trottoirs and theaters, such as the famous Piccadilly Theater. We were the first coffee roasters on Hamra Street with a stand up bar where people would enjoy coffee on the go or buy roasted and ground coffee to use at home,” says Amin Younes, CEO at Café Younes, speaking of when his father opened the original Café Younes coffee roaster shop which today is still located next to the first Café Younes outlet near the Commodore Hotel.

Hamra Street’s “glory days” in terms of its hospitality appeal were in the 1960s and early 1970s. But, as the Civil War took its toll, activity in Hamra’s hospitality venues decreased and was restricted to the brave Beirutis who remained in the area and to the foreign journalists who were hungry for some conversation and a bite to eat. 

Picking up after the war

After the war, focus on the development of hospitality outlets in the country was low, and while Hamra’s existing F&B outlets were still somewhat active, the pre Civil War buzz which dominated the street hadn’t been revived yet, and by nighttime the street was almost deserted. 

In 1994,  Malek El Batata (which translates to King of Fries) moved from its then location on Baalbek Street near the Commodore Hotel to its current outlet towards the end of main road Hamra, which offered a more financially lucrative location according to its owner Georges Moujaes. “We had a big opening which was attended by the Minister of Tourism at that time and many guests. People were surprised that a minister would come to the opening of a snack shop, but investment in Hamra Street was low during that period and anyone willing to invest in the street was highly encouraged,” he recalls. He adds that while the first few months in the new location were tough, business rapidly picked up due to home delivery services and increasing footfall in Hamra.

[pullquote]“This café will never have the same feel as Horseshoe or Modca, but at least I can still read my newspaper while enjoying the sunshine”[/pullquote]

Out with the old

The 2000s were a bittersweet decade for the eateries on Hamra’s main street, with the closure of some well known restaurant-cafes such as Wimpy, Modca, Café De Paris and Horseshoe Cafe, which had survived the Civil War only to find that the number of their customers had dwindled and it was no longer financially viable to stay open.

At the same time, new hospitality venues were popping up on Hamra and its neighboring alleys, especially after 2005. Despite initial protests from the old loyal customers of Hamra cafe, the new cafes on the street were not short of clientele. As one elderly gentleman who was reading a newspaper while sipping coffee at one of the international coffee houses on Hamra Street said, “This café will never have the same feel as Horseshoe or Modca, but at least I can still read my newspaper while enjoying the sunshine.”

In with the new

The period between 2012 and 2014 was that of regional turmoil and internal instability, which affected the hospitality and tourism sector as a whole as previously reported in Executive. Although Hamra’s hospitality venues were also affected by this situation, Hadi Fadel, corporate marketing manager of Boubess Group which operates four venues on Hamra Street (Kaiten, Napoletana, Café Hamra and Laziz), says that the effect was less drastic than in other areas of the country. 

“Our venues on Hamra saw a drop, although not drastic, between 2011 and 2014, which was also seen across the country in our venues. Interestingly though, our venues in Hamra were performing comparatively better than our venues in other areas of Lebanon during those years. Fortunately, according to our numbers for the first quarter of 2015, there is positive growth versus last year in our four venues on Hamra Street in terms of revenue or covers,” says Fadel, declining to give actual percentage growth figures. 

A sign of the challenging period Fadel was talking about is the closure of restaurants in the area towards the end of Hamra Street in the past two to three years — including Applebees, El Battal Snack and others — although this is more related to the oversupply of restaurants in that area than to footfall. “There was an economic rush for people to open a restaurant or a bar in Hamra, but many opened and closed. It was a bit rough because it was too big of a rush and it cannot last,” says Abdul Rahman Zahzah, partner in T-Marbouta.

The universities’ effect on Hamra’s eateries 

Hamra has been through a series of ups and downs when it comes to the hospitality sector, but several factors ensured that the food and beverage outlets in Hamra would always have a supply of customers with a variety of tastes and preferences likely to be met in one or another of these outlets. 

All of the hospitality venue owners interviewed for this article believe that the presence of major universities — such as AUB, the Lebanese American University or Haigazian — and schools — International College or Saint Mary’s Orthodox College for example — create a steady flow of day time customers to many venues on Hamra Street and the vicinity. 

Speaking about Dunkin’ Donuts, which has a big outlet with a terrace and a study lounge in the basement, the cafe’s marketing manager Martha Zarazir says that 60 percent of their sales in the afternoon shift are from high school or university students who gather with their friends at the venue to study or socialize.

The schools and universities in the area hire a high percentage of foreign professors or staff and their presence in the area is felt by the hospitality venue operators on Hamra, with Fadel saying Napoletana has a good number of Europeans as regular customers that they have not noticed as much in their other venues in Lebanon.

[pullquote]“Ras Beirut is one of the only areas in Beirut where both Christians and Muslims coexist happily and this will never change in Hamra.”[/pullquote]

Hamra’s leftist crowd 

Another customer type that is generated by the presence of AUB and LAU in the area is a more secular or leftist clientele who tend to favor local, organically developed and authentic venues of which quite a few are to be found on Hamra Street. T-Marbouta’s Zahzah believes Hamra Street is varied with its clientele having many identities, one of which is the cultural identity he attributes to the the presence of the universities in the area. The universities  historically have played a role in developing this identity, according to him, and also to the leftist Syrian/Lebanese/Iraqi intellectual movement that was most active in Hamra during the 1960s and 1970s. 

In line with Zahzah, Younes says: “The presence of major universities which host cultured or leftist thinking, in the cultural and social sense, is very well represented in Hamra Street. Ras Beirut is one of the only areas in Beirut where both Christians and Muslims coexist happily and this will never change in Hamra.”

In addition to the universities, explains Zahzah, publishing houses, newspaper offices, bookstores and theaters in the vicinity create the right environment for outlets catering to the leftist crowd. 

This clientele tends to favor authentic venues reminiscent to a certain degree of the cafes of the 1960s and as one of the partners in Mezyan recounts, in addition to his passion for food, he first thought of developing Mezyan around 2008 when Hamra’s old restaurants and cafes, which he used to frequent, were closing down and he felt that there were no real restaurants in Hamra (which are not part of a chain) anymore. Zahzah likes to believe they, along with similar venues on Hamra, are a modest extension of these cafes. 

The operators of such venues — Café Younes, Mezyan and T-Marbouta interviewed for this article — say they are a part and product of the Hamra community and believe they practice leftist or liberal principles, not only by the layout and design of their venues, but by applying equal employment and fair wages to all nationalities, by giving back to the community through social initiatives and by hosting cultural activities or musical events in their venues. 

Businesses and banks

Universities aside, Hamra Street is also a major commercial hub with the Central Bank at its beginning and most of Lebanon’s major banks having a branch on the main street or in its vicinity. In addition to the banks, several businesses have their offices in Hamra. All of these factors combined create a vibrant daytime crowd.

“Because we have a lot of banks around our shop, we have a lot of bank employees who come for takeout coffee in the morning, making 60 percent of our sales in the morning from takeaway. The average age of customers during this shift is between 25 and 44 years old,” says Dunkin’ Donuts’ Zarazir. 

[pullquote]“Now we feel that Hamra is going back to its normal setting”[/pullquote]

After working hours 

While such an environment creates volume during weekdays, Fadel says Hamra is getting busy during weekends as well, after a recent slump. “During weekdays, securing volume is easy because of Hamra being a hub, but we felt the decrease in footfall in Hamra when things were calm on the weekend and people were scared to go out [from 2012 to 2014]. Now we feel that Hamra is going back to its normal setting with the Lebanese coming to Hamra again during the weekends which is resulting in the growth we saw,” he explains.

Night time is also busy on Hamra street, as any traffic congested evening drive or peek into one the pubs in Estral Center or restaurants on the street will prove. Fadel says their venues get more footfall during the night shift and Mezyan, although a restaurant, is always busier at night with people enjoying themselves over drinks. Parallel to Hamra Street, Makdessi Street is also booming with pub crawlers. 

Non Lebanese on Hamra street

Although the number of tourists from the Gulf region has declined across the board, Hamra included, the volume of the Iraqi and Syrian nationals in Hamra has somewhat made up for this, despite their comparatively lower purchasing power, explains Fadel. “This gap that was created by the absence of the Gulf tourists has been somehow filled by the local Lebanese and the Syrians and Iraqis who are spending, albeit less than the tourists from the Gulf, and creating volume in the market, especially around Hamra. They are outgoing and they are restaurant goers who we see mostly in Café Hamra and Laziz where they like to hang out in the afternoons and smoke argeeleh,” says Fadel. Mezyan and T-Marbouta both say they have a lot of Syrian customers, while Mezyan adds that they serve many Iraqis, especially at night.

Iraqi nationals are often in Hamra for medical treatment at AUBMC while the abundance of furnished apartments in Hamra has made it easy for Syrians escaping the war in their country to find a temporary home in Beirut. “There are a lot more Syrians around Hamra, especially artists and people who work in theater which has enriched Hamra. Also you have Iraqis who were already refugees in Syria and moved here, and these are again often the artists or writers in their community,” says one of the partners in Mezyan. 

The presence of these two nationalities in Hamra is so significant that they have developed hospitality venues featuring their local cuisines on Hamra Street. One such venue is Beit Halab which was developed by Syrian Musaab el Hadri, who says that 80 percent of his clients are Syrian or Iraqi, while another is Iraq el Kheir, developed by Iraqi Mahmoud Amin, catering to “mainly Iraqis but also a lot of Syrian customers.”

The Hamra spirit 

One late evening in Mezyan, there was a table with Iraqis, Palestinian–Syrians, Palestinian–Lebanese, Lebanese and a few Europeans all sitting together as an Iraqi was singing a melancholic song impromptu. This is Hamra, where almost everyone can find the environment and the crowd to suit their taste and feel at home.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Economics & Policy

Becoming clearer

by Matt Nash
written by Matt Nash

The search for potential onshore hydrocarbon reservoirs in Lebanon is moving along more quickly than anticipated. Fully analyzed and interpreted data from an airborne survey of 6,000 square kilometers will be ready by the end of the second quarter, three months ahead of schedule, according to NEOS GeoSolutions, the US based company conducting the survey. NEOS is looking mostly at onshore Lebanon in the north, but the survey also includes both on and offshore acreage along the coast — known as the ‘transition zone.’ While the full data set will not be made public — in fact, it is for sale — early indicators suggest Lebanon’s onshore has potential.

In March, Lebanon’s Lampion Oil & Gas Services completed a ground magnetotelluric survey to complement the airborne survey being conducted by NEOS GeoSolutions. The local firm was subcontracted by US based Zonge International, which itself was subcontracted by NEOS, Lampion’s Rachad Ghanem tells Executive. He explains that Lampion is collecting extra data to “calibrate” the data NEOS already collected from the air. According to an oilfield glossary written by the oil and gas services company Schlumberger, a magnetotelluric survey is a type of electromagnetic (EM) survey that measures “naturally occurring electric and magnetic fields at the earth’s surface.” Data gleaned from such a survey is used to “map subsurface resistivity variations,” reports the website of Electromagnetic GeoServices (EMGS), a company that does these surveys. Resistivity is a measurement of “how strongly a material opposes the flow of an electric current,” according to EMGS website. A report from Schlumberger further explains “some fluids (e.g. gas and oil) have very high resistivities while formation water and shales have low resistivities. These variations can help to discriminate between fluids.” A magnetotelluric survey also gives a picture of the subsurface far deeper down than 2D or 3D seismic surveying, according to Schlumberger’s glossary. While NEOS did take magnetotelluric measurements from the air, Lee Harper, the company’s director of operations, explains in an email exchange that the ground survey “allows us to calibrate our airborne EM data, as well as enhance our overall data set. Ground [magnetotelluric] surveys are able to capture lower frequencies than airborne systems, which allows us to look deeper into the ground.”

The real story

Contrary to a press report from January saying that NEOS would also conduct an onshore 2D seismic survey, the company is actually only incorporating 2D data shot by another company in 2013. “NEOS does not have plans to conduct any onshore seismic acquisition. Our Lebanon project will include the integration of some of the existing seismic [data], principally in the transition zone part of the survey area, into our interpretation and analysis,” Amanda Jane, NEOS’ project manager for the Lebanon survey, told Executive in an email exchange back in January. Jane said the Lebanese Petroleum Administration was expected to hand over the 2D data for incorporation by the end of January.

All eyes on Q2

The airborne survey finished in December 2014, according to a company press release, and so called ‘first look’ data became available to the survey’s underwriters in February 2015. NEOS will not reveal who is underwriting the project, in line with standard industry practice, but the company’s local partner, PetroServ, told Executive in October that it is underwriting the survey to the tune of $7.5 million. In a narrated slideshow describing the survey, NEOS reports that the project is moving ahead of schedule — ‘first look’ data was initially expected to be delivered by end of March. The slideshow says NEOS is “presently anticipating having the full interpretation ready for delivery on an accelerated basis at some point late in the second quarter,” as opposed to by the end of September as originally planned. Once the data is fully analyzed, it will be available for purchase.

In a slideshow on its website describing the ‘first look’ data, NEOS includes some tantalizing information about clay and iron oxide deposits on the western margins of the Bekaa Valley. While the company has a commercial interest in talking up the results to sell more licenses to access them, misleading potential clients with embellishments would damage the company’s credibility, meaning what they say about survey results thus far should be taken with a grain of salt, but not entirely dismissed as marketing mumbo jumbo. The deposits, the slideshow explains, are often a sign that oil or gas could lie below. “If you had hydrocarbon bearing intervals in the subsurface under Bekaa, these are the types of [indirect hydrocarbon indicators] one would expect to see and they are in the place where one would expect to see them.”

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Leaders

Throw open the doors

by Executive Editors
written by Executive Editors

There’s a glaring contradiction between the privately owned plots on the cadastral map of Beirut and legislation regarding ownership along the coast. A 1925 decree — still in force today — says that the coast is public property. It defines coast, or “maritime public domain,” as the “seashore until the farthest distance that the wave[s]could reach in winter and sand shores and pebbles.” This should automatically mean that the sandy beach of Ramlet al-Baida is unquestionably public property. Yet the cadastral maps for the area show that the sandy beach has been divided into parcels, which are today almost entirely privately owned. Executive has not yet been able to ascertain how this happened, but the fact remains that it did. And this is not just an esoteric legal incongruity: it affects one of the city’s last undeveloped coastal areas, including its only sandy beach. Clearly, a reasonable solution is needed to balance the public’s right to enjoy the coast with the substantial sums of money private owners have invested in the land.

One option would be for either the city of Beirut or the Lebanese state to buy the land, thus preserving it for the public. Such a move would work best in the context of a larger, well studied urban plan for the city, and should not be a knee jerk reaction to public anger. After all, both the city of Beirut and the government currently own land along Beirut’s western coast, yet we see no sign that either is currently managing its trash-strewn parcels to maximize public use and benefit. A parallel and more immediate solution would be to make the process of obtaining exemptions from coastal zoning laws more difficult and — crucially — more expensive. Exemptions are, after all, deviations from duly enacted public policy. They should be neither easily obtainable nor wildly lucrative.

The best and most efficient way to do this would also be one of the simplest: bring the exemptions process into the light. Currently, developments requiring exemptions receive only a technical review before being sent to the Council of Ministers for political approval behind closed doors. The public has no say in this process — a highly problematic fact when developments abut or encroach upon lands used by many citizens, such as those along Beirut’s western coast.

The public must be allowed to evaluate and comment on project exemptions. At a minimum, that means better disclosure of aberrant development plans, and public hearings open to all citizens with an opinion to air. While not a panacea, this minor reform would introduce a higher standard of scrutiny that is sorely lacking at present. And while it would not address all coastal developments, it would place greater constraints on the largest — the Eden Rock Resort on Ramlet al-Baida, currently in the excavation phase, would have been affected, for instance.

Bringing the exemptions process into the light should only be the first step to better mediate between private landowning interests and those of the public, but it is a necessary one. Policymakers, throw open your doors.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Comment

Feeling the heat

by Nicole Purin
written by Nicole Purin

The sight was electrifying: a solar powered flying machine ascended into the desert morning in order to probe a new frontier for ecology and sustainability. Venturing far beyond the conventional concept of an airplane, Solar Impulse II is a science adventure to test and develop new practical technologies that can deal with the urgent, global problem of climate change.

Hatched by two Swiss celebrity explorers, Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard, the experimental aircraft intends to circumnavigate the earth in a five month-long flight that is divided into 12 segments. To optimize its chances of success, Solar Impulse II took off last month from Abu Dhabi.

The ultimate problem the flight seeks to address — climate change — is defined as the modification of climate patterns, both regionally and globally, and has been attributed to the increased level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel consumption. The general consensus is that a continuous buildup of emissions will have dire effects on the planet, such as seas submerging cities and extreme weather patterns.

The environment has always been a highly important topic in the world’s agenda but the current environmental protection campaigns seen around the globe are unprecedented, as Hollywood actors, top politicians and ordinary people have made climate change their personal crusades. Leonardo DiCaprio, actor and UN representative on climate change, stated at the 2014 UN Climate Change Summit in New York that “climate change is not fiction … droughts are intensifying, our oceans are acidifying … we’re seeing extreme weather events in the west Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melting at unheard of rates.”

These statements characterize the mood of the public at a time where saving the environment is the only way forward. While the global debate over climate change is today as heated as ever, Gulf Cooperation Council countries — highly scrutinized due to their roles as some of the top carbon emitters in the world due to their heavy energy consumption — are beginning to take action against climate change.

The actions

“The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say, ‘Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it’s not a problem.’ If the crib’s on fire, you don’t speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action.” — Al Gore

When we burn gas, oil or coal, the infamous fossil fuels, carbon dioxide (CO2) is released into the atmosphere, leading to an overall increase in the planet’s temperature. It is indisputable to say that at the heart of the matter of climate change is carbon emissions production. Hence, the decrease of carbon emission is regarded as a crucial factor in controlling the planet’s temperature.

The effort to control climate change is a not a recent phenomenon. In the last decades, the governments of many countries have agreed to enter into numerous treaties to achieve this target. In 1979, the pioneering world climate change conference took place, hand in hand with the oil crisis and realization among many nations of their oil dependency. In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up.

Until then there was no framework to monitor climate change, hence the IPCC and the second World Climate Conference called for a global treaty to be put in place. The United Nations General Assembly called for the swift implementation of a framework convention. As a result, The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was implemented in 1992 and although countries adhered to it (by considering what to do to limit global temperature increases and the resulting climate change), it required fine tuning. By 1995, countries realized that emission reductions provisions in the Convention were inadequate. It was a turbulent time for climate change. The measures were not successful, and some argued insufficient, to fulfill the required goals.

New landmarks

In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted. It was seen as a very positive development, especially after the Convention. The effect of the protocol is that it legally binds developed countries to emission reduction targets. The protocol’s first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. The second commitment period began on January 1, 2013 and will end in 2020. There are now 195 Parties to the Convention and 192 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol entered into force on February 16, 2005. To ensure targets are met, the parties to the protocol have continued the negotiations and have amended the protocol to achieve more tangible and increasingly ambitious targets by 2030.

Other highly significant developments have been the COP15 (Copenhagen Accord), the Cancún agreements, the Doha amendments and most recently the COP20 Lima Climate Change Conference in December 2014. The effect of these recent developments is to give the required ‘legality’ to all these agreements, to ensure pledges are officialized, binding and structured. A lot of progress has been made at international level that has great implications on economic and sustainable development, the management of resources and population demographics.

The UAE and GCC climate change players 

It is common knowledge that Gulf countries are amongst the higher producers of carbon emissions with the highest per capita carbon footprint in the world, which has been driven by the vast number of resources, ambitious projects and economic developments in these countries. Currently, the UAE annual per capita footprint amounts to roughly  7.8. hectares per person. Kuwait is now ranked as the world’s worst footprint and Qatar is the second, according to the 2014 WWF’s Living Planet Report.

However, there is a growing awareness of environmental and sustainability matters amongst Gulf Cooperation countries and in the Middle East, which is paving the way for a ‘greener future’ in this part of the world. The UAE especially has been at the region’s forefront of environmental friendly projects such as the zero pollution, zero waste city and Masdar’s carbon emissions reductions strategies under the various protocols and conventions.

To name recent legal measures with positive implications for reducing emissions, the UAE launched via its Supreme Council of Energy a mandatory energy efficiency standardization and labeling scheme designed to improve energy conservation and maximize energy utilization in residential properties. The energy consumed by ventilation devices and air conditioners is truly significant and the labeling system introduced in 2012 has enabled a more efficient control of power consuming devices, in line with international standards focused on decreasing electrical power consumption.

The UAE’s progress in this field has been gradual but consistent, as it has also introduced ‘green city’s concepts’ while government buildings have to adhere to energy savings programs including new buildings (2011 Supreme council of energy initiative with the Dubai Municipality and DEWA). This initiative becomes even more powerful in light of construction projects being developed for the 2020 Dubai EXPO.

On the international stage, the UAE sent a high level delegation to the 20th COP 20 meeting held in Lima, Peru, in December 2014. The conference is a central forum where countries can communicate their strategies to reduce climate change, paving a way to the new global agreement in Paris in 2015. The UAE’s participation was very well regarded and it emphasized its strong commitment to climate change control, via major commercial renewable investments through Masdar (up to $2 billion of projects), carbon capture storage and funding of renewable energy projects in developing countries via IRENA and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.

In January 2015, UAE vice president, prime minister and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced the launch of the Green Economy for Sustainable Development strategy. This plan focuses on environmental preservation as well as establishing the UAE as a world leader in green technology, renewable energy and reduction of carbon emissions (carbon capturing and storage technologies).

Projects, policies, legislation and international collaborations are seen as the pillars of this national initiative that will certainly transform the UAE’s economic infrastructure and provide parameters to the other GCC nations. The Abu Dhabi Sustainability week that took place from January 17–24, 2015, brought together politicians, leaders and investors, to shape the future of climate change and the world’s green economies.

According to Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s Executive Council could give Masdar permission to build Nour 1, a 100 megawatt photovoltaic plant. As the organization points out, the project has been put on hold since 2011, but it is a necessary step in Abu Dhabi’s goal to source 7 percent of its powers from renewable energy by 2020.

It is within the UAE’s drive towards change its position and reputation to a clean future that Abu Dhabi welcomed Solar Impulse II and its pilots and supported the team’s attempt to fly around the world using solar energy. Within the first 11 days from their takeoff in Abu Dhabi, Borschberg and Piccard — whose international team also includes UAE volunteers and a Lebanese nutritionist — already experienced weather related delays, bureaucratic obstacles and even the temporary breakdown of the Solar Impulse II website. But more importantly, their attempt is to demonstrate that clean energy can achieve things that have been previously thought impossible. They have completed their first four flight segments successfully and with a few new records.

This is a futuristic initiative that might change the history of aviation and clean energy and the UAE is at the forefront of it.  However, the UAE still remains one of the world’s worst carbon emitters and it is necessary for the country’s and the whole region’s population to adopt an energy saving and conservationist approach in order to reduce the per capita footprint. Education and high scale initiatives will assist in this plan and the UAE is on the right track.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Leaders

Hungry for change

by Executive Editors
written by Executive Editors

Food safety has become a national spectacle over the past several months. While there have been no recent foodborne epidemics, Health Minister Wael Abou Faour has incessantly reminded us that much of what we eat “violates health standards.” Yet despite this cringeworthy thought, it is refreshing to see the minister taking food safety so seriously — notwithstanding our nagging suspicions about his true motives for waging this campaign and disappointment over his lack of hard numbers to reinforce how serious the risks we face are. Abou Faour has repeatedly pledged not to let food safety fall off the radar when he leaves office, but we need much more than a pledge. We need serious institutional reform.

[pullquote]We need much more than a pledge. We need serious institutional reform[/pullquote]

For far too long, Lebanon’s elected officials have known there are serious problems with the current system for ensuring that what we eat is safe and clean. That said, Abou Faour is the first minister of public health to name, shame and promise change in over a decade. His efforts are laudable, but the problem is overlapping authority — the ministries of agriculture, public health, tourism, economy and industry, as well as each of the country’s six governors all play a role in monitoring food safety, not to mention the municipalities. When multiple government agencies have responsibilities for something, it is all too easy for everyone to do nothing but blame each other if and when an epidemic happens.

In recent years, intermittent reports of warehouses full of expired meat or potato chips have surfaced time and again. Last year, Executive reported that farmers facing a water crisis were diverting wastewater to be used for irrigation. There is no legitimate reason why negligent food handling has continued for so long. We understand that business owners on any link of the food chain might try sneaking expired products into the market rather than counting them as losses, but this is absolutely unacceptable.

Today, according to the director general of the ministry of health, there are only 70 health inspectors working for the ministry, which is underfunded and understaffed. If, as the director general claims, other ministries are not doing their jobs properly vis-à-vis food safety, the chances that this crusade will end with Abou Faour’s term are far too high for us to be comfortable relying only on a pledge that Wael’s war will outlast him. We need institutional change and concentrated authority. We need a new law, and a draft approved in January 2015 by parliament’s joint committees seems like the best start.

[pullquote]The chances that this crusade will end with Abou Faour’s term are far too high[/pullquote]

Chapter three of the draft calls for the creation of a centralized body, the Lebanese Food Safety Commission, that would have full control of food safety from inspecting imported food before it is distributed, to visiting farms and slaughterhouses to make sure best practices are being implemented. This is a good idea provided the commission is fully staffed with enough inspectors to routinely conduct randomized safety checks throughout the country. While article 30 of the draft delineates 21 tasks the commission will be responsible for — such as overseeing the ‘traceability’ process, i.e. tracking food through all stages of production to analyze any potential risks — the exact details will come in future bylaws.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri reportedly wants to convene a legislative session in mid April, and this draft should be on the agenda and given an up or down vote. On top of that, the cabinet must swiftly pass any necessary implementing decrees to ensure the food safety commission is created quickly, given proper authority and fully funded. The unfortunately common practice of reforms being stillborn because the cabinet fails to follow up with the necessary implementing decrees cannot be allowed to happen in this case. Food safety is a must, and the only way to avoid more scandals in the future is to properly monitor and regulate the sector. Ensuring safety is a day-in and day-out job, not something that will happen when someone raises a stink every few years. Better to turn the current spectacle into something productive, lest we have a true food safety issue in the future.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Beirut's private coastReal Estate

Seashore, Inc.

by Matt Nash
written by Matt Nash

There is a map of Beirut’s private coast from Dalieh to the southern city limits accompanying this article. You can find it here.

***

On February 10, 1966, Inmaa Tourism and Hotels bought two plots of land on the sandy shores of Ramlet al-Baida. Eight years later, the company bought seven more plots, bringing its total land holdings on the coast in this area of Beirut to around 30,000 square meters (m²). The land is still owned by Inmaa. Who owns Inmaa, however, is another story entirely, one which reflects the confusing ownership structure of the land stretching from Dalieh near the Pigeon Rocks to the end of Beirut’s southern city limits. Individual people own only around 27 percent of the Dalieh-Ramlet al-Baida land. The public sector — via the Beirut Municipality and the Lebanese government — each own three plots which represent around 5 percent of the land. Corporations own the rest. The three with the largest holdings are Sakhrat Al-Bahr Real Estate, Al-Bahr Real Estate and Inmaa. On a human level, however, Rafik Hariri’s heirs and Wissam Achour are the most important players on Beirut’s private coast.

Who owns Inmaa

In 2005, Inmaa’s majority shareholder, Kuwait’s General Investment Authority, was trying to sell the company to divest from the land, according to a news report carried by MENA FN. However, this attempt failed, claimed the report, so Inmaa would again try to put itself up for sale.

[pullquote]On a human level, however, Rafik Hariri’s heirs and Wissam Achour are the most important players on Beirut’s private coast[/pullquote]

In Beirut, Raja Makarem stood behind his large wooden desk, using a laser pointer to highlight plots on a giant map of the city on the wall. Nine years ago, he says, he was on the cusp of brokering a deal for an American company to buy 70,000 m² of land for $140 million — including the nine Inmaa plots, which he says accounted for 30 percent of the total land on offer. For the Inmaa land, the buyers were slated to purchase the company’s shares, not the land it owned. The deal, he says, fell through.

In 2007, Stow Capital Partners, a real estate company registered in Bermuda with offices in the UK and Lebanon, announced they’d bought 40,000 m² of land “on the outskirts of the city of Beirut.” Stow’s website explains “[t]he plot was identified in early 2005 as a site with legal problems where value could be added. An option was taken on the land allowing for a window of opportunity to sort through the legal hurdles and investigate if resolutions could be facilitated, while locking in a very competitive price.” A 2014 document from Lebanon’s commercial registry shows no reference to Kuwait’s General Investment Authority’s ownership in Inmaa. Instead, Walid Daouk, a nonexecutive director at Stow and former information minister, owns 21.2 percent of Inmaa, while Stow itself owns 8.1 percent. Inmaa’s largest shareholder is a company called Barbara Bay Ltd with 32.3 percent. Executive believes Barbara Bay is registered in the Cayman Islands, but could not retrieve documents showing definitive proof. Nazem el-Khoury, Stow’s executive director and a former minister of environment, tells Executive that Stow kicked around ideas for a large scale development a few years ago, but believes the plans are on hold. He suggests Farouk Kamal, Stow’s executive chairman, is the best person to ask about the company’s current plans for the land and the companies that own Inmaa. Kamal did not respond to phone messages left at his office nor an email seeking comment. It is unclear why Stow says it bought 40,000 m² of land when the company is only associated with the 30,000 m² owned by Inmaa. Kamal, who is also chairman of Beirut Waterfront Development of Zaitunay Bay fame, told Executive in January 2014 that a project on the site had been “fully designed — but I don’t know if we will launch it.”

Jumping down the rabbit hole 

Over the course of the past six months, Executive has connected the 51 plots of land stretching from Dalieh south to Beirut’s city limit to actual human owners. Nahnoo, a local NGO, shared nine of the land ownership documents with Executive, the rest came from the DGLRC and the Commercial Registry. The process was slow moving at points in part because companies own the vast majority of the land — 90 percent of the approximately 290,000 m² — not individual people.

Corporate ownership of land is legal under Lebanese law and useful for a variety of reasons, explains Eddy Sakr, a partner with the auditing and tax advisory firm Sarkis Sakr & Partners. One reason, he says, is for succession planning, as dividing a company among one’s children is often better for future development purposes than dividing the land. In Lebanon, every plot of land consists of 2,400 shares, and if a plot has multiple shareholders, all must agree on how to use the land before it can be developed. The records show that ownership in many of the Dalieh plots was passed from parents to children, resulting in miniscule holdings and multiple owners. For example, plot number 1116 is the fifth smallest of the 13 Dalieh plots with a total area of 1,458 m². Yet it has 26 owners. Records show Al-Bahr Real Estate owns almost all of the plot (with 2133.6771 shares) with the 25 remaining people having inherited a number of shares ranging from 66.6667 to 0.7292. If land is passed to children via a company, Sakr says, the children have more flexibility as shareholders in a company to brush aside dissenting voices when the time comes to develop the land.

[pullquote]Another reason to register land in the name of a company is to avoid fees related to both selling and bequeathing it[/pullquote]

Sakr says that another reason to register land in the name of a company is to avoid fees related to both selling and bequeathing it. “If land is owned by a person, and that person wants to sell or give it to their kids, they have to go to the real estate directorate and pay a 6 percent fee for the sale [or transfer].” If the land is corporately owned and the corporation is a joint stock company (a société anonyme libanaise or SAL in Lebanon), “you can transfer shares from one person to another without having to pay any tax,” says Sakr. As the Inmaa example illustrates, land in this part of Beirut has often changed hands via corporate deals rather than land sales. Sakr warns that developers who buy a company only for the land it owns may avoid a registration fee in the short term, but could end up paying more in the long run should they want to develop the land. On the books of the original land-owning company, he says, the land will have a certain value that has no doubt gone up by the time the buyer acquires that first company. When that buyer wants to sell units in whatever project gets built on the land, the land itself will have to be revalued and the developer will pay a capital gains tax on the difference in valuations — an amount that more often than not exceeds the registration fee.

So who owns what?

The Lebanese government owns three of the plots, clustered south of the Mövenpick hotel on a curve in the land, for a total area of 5,729 m². Beirut’s municipality also owns three plots. One is a slender strip of 246 m² wedged between two privately owned plots, which are themselves surrounded by the government’s land. The city’s other two plots — 5070 and 5069 — are prime, sandy beach property right on the water at the northern edge of Ramlet al-Baida and total 8,568 m². Almost all of the human owners of shares in a plot inherited their land. Exceptions include, but are not limited to, Kamal Sadr — who purchased the 3,987 m² plot 1554 north of the city’s land in 2014 — and Salwa Beidoun. Beidoun today owns 100 shares in each of four Dalieh plots (1113, 1117, 1118 and 1119). The purchase is registered on July 31, 1990. Al-Bahr Real Estate owns the remaining shares in each of the plots Beidoun partially owns. Whether she only bought a small amount of shares in 1990 or bought them all and sold most to Al-Bahr later is unclear from the records. Executive was unable to reach any of the individual human owners.

The Hariris

While Rafik Hariri is today ‘known’ for having bought up much of the Dalieh land, he actually first acquired seafront property in Ramlet al-Baida, not Dalieh. And he did it indirectly. It all started in 1981 when Hariri bought 73 percent of the shares of Méditerranée Investors Group (MIG), which in turn owned 59 percent of BankMed, according to a 2005 BankMed annual report. The next year, the annual report says, Hariri bought all of MIG and in 1983 BankMed “became a wholly owned subsidiary of MIG.” In a 1994 interview published on his website, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora explained that when Hariri bought BankMed, he also became owner of one of the bank’s “sister companies,” as Siniora puts it, called Mediterranean Real Estate, which owned plots 4026, 4027, 4285 and 2233 (a total of 15,703 m²) — all beach properties between the city of Beirut’s land and the land currently under development for the Eden Rock Resort. Additionally, in the interview Siniora says that in 1991 Hariri bought shares in a company called National Company for Land and Buildings (NCLB), which then owned plot 2231, the largest of the Dalieh–Ramlet al-Baida plots with a total area of 29,073 m². Today, over 99 percent of NCLB is owned by a holding company founded in 1984 called Irad Investment Company. Irad also owns 200 of Mediterranean Real Estate’s 5,000 shares (or 4 percent).

The land ownership documents do not provide a detailed history of how the land has changed hands, rather they show only the current owners. For four plots, the documents did reveal who a company bought shares from, but that is the exception, not the rule. Ditto the commercial registry documents. They only show current shareholders, not the history of share purchases. That said, there are several land owning companies that purchased land within years or — in the most extreme case, days — from when they were founded which are today owned by Irad. For example, Irad owns 99.9 percent of the National Company for Land and Buildings 2 (NCLB2). NCLB2 was founded on July 10, 2002 and bought three plots in Ramlet al-Baida on July 13, 2002. Two of the plots, according to the Siniora interview, were at one point owned by Mediterranean Real Estate. Al Bahr Real Estate, founded in 1994, purchased shares in two Dalieh plots in 1998, bought more shares in another Dalieh plot in 2000 and then acquired MP Michel Murr’s shares in four others on May 26, 2007. Irad owns 99.9 percent of Al Bahr. A third company, Sakhrat Al-Bahr, was founded in 1994 and on December 30 1995 purchased shares in three Dalieh plots and, on the same day, bought all 2,400 shares in three other Dalieh plots. Irad does not own Sakhrat Al-Bahr. In fact, only 89 of the company’s 26,500,000 shares have listed owners on its commercial registry document. Among them, however, are BankMed Investment SAL (BMI), MEP Investment SAL (99 percent owned by BMI) and Med Propterties SAL (99 percent by Bank Med Group SAL Holding).

Wissam Achour

In 2011, Wissam Achour made what appears to be his first foray into purchasing land in Ramlet al-Baida through a contract with a company called Eden Rock Tourism and Development. His lawyer, Bahij Abou Mjahed, told Executive in January that Achour will pay $175 million for the 22,295 m² of land — or $7,849 per square meter, quite a jump from the $2,000 per square meter Raja Makarem was about to sell land right next door for in 2006. The money has not been fully paid, Mjahed said, and only will be once the two tower resort complex currently in the excavation phase starts drawing in capital. In 2013, he made another purchase more closely in line with the tradition of the area.

[pullquote]Achour did not buy land directly, but rather he bought companies that own the land[/pullquote]

Achour did not buy land directly, but rather he bought companies that own the land. Commercial registry documents show that Achour now owns 80 percent of Mediterranean Real Estate (the company Hariri owned via his purchase of BankMed, according to the Siniora interview), and thus plots 4027 and 4026. He also bought Al-Bahr Real Estate 2, which owns plots 1388 and 1389 — smaller plots near the Lebanese government’s land — as well as 5071 and 2369. The latter two, 4027 and 4026, are in a line of plots that stretch across much of Ramlet al-Baida’s sandy shore and the two cover a total area of 30,265 m². The documents do not show who Achour bought the companies from, but Irad has a 4 percent stake in Mediterranean Real Estate as does FRH Holding, 99.9 percent of which is owned by Fahd Rafik Hariri. Irad and FRH Holding also each have one share out of 30,000 shares in Al-Bahr Real Estate 2. Achour’s 30,000 plus square meters of contiguous beach is not far from the Eden Rock Resort. Four plots stand between the two parcels — plots which are all owned by companies of which Irad owns 99.9 percent.

Manal Dana, Achour Development’s marketing manager, tells Executive, as she has told other news outlets, that Achour has no big development plans for the 30,265 m². “The land will be renovated so people can go down on clean sand without any garbage. There will be small fees at the entrance to preserve it and [fund] small entertainment activities, like in Europe. But there will not be any towers on it, it will not be constructed, this area.”

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Economics & Policy

Thinking ahead

by Mona Sukkarieh
written by Mona Sukkarieh

Since 2010, policymakers in Israel have had to repeatedly intervene in the energy sector to deal with challenges — not just opportunities — presented by the discovery of large gas fields.

[pullquote]Since 2010, policymakers in Israel have had to repeatedly intervene in the energy sector[/pullquote]

In December 2014, Israel’s antitrust commissioner David Gilo revoked a previous agreement that allowed US based Noble Energy and Israeli company Delek to retain ownership of Israel’s biggest offshore field, Leviathan, in return for giving up two small fields, Tanin and Karish. The decision threatens the development of Leviathan, expected by 2018, and risks delaying it for an undetermined period of time.

The decision comes after the results of a report, commissioned by the Public Utilities Authority, were made public on December 18, confirming previous worries, including an ongoing increase in the price of natural gas sold by the Tamar consortium (the Noble and Delek led partners in Tamar, another large field) and anticipating an increase in electricity prices, as a result of “monopolistic contractual demands,” locking Israeli consumers into artificially high and perennially rising prices. The Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) is currently paying around $5.70 per million British Thermal Units (mmBtu), perceived as a reasonable price, but the concern is about future developments and trends. The starting price for IEC’s long term supply agreements was $5/mmBtu but would eventually reach $7.70/mmBtu.

The decision, which triggered a clash with the Ministry of Energy, also comes amid a mood of economic populism in Israel, relayed at the highest levels of state institutions (including by certain members of the cabinet and the Knesset), and fueled further by the March 17 national election.

Noble has threatened to freeze “additional exploration or development investments” in Israel until the resolution of this and other regulatory matters. Regulatory uncertainty is perceived as a deterrent for foreign investments in Israel, particularly in the oil and gas sector. Gilo’s decision to renege on a previous agreement is not an isolated event. Since 2010, (i.e. after the discovery of Tamar and Leviathan), Israeli authorities have repeatedly intervened to regulate the sector. First, through the Sheshinski committee — a special commission whose recommendations, including a major tax increase, were approved by the Knesset in March 2011 — and second, through the Tzemach committee and the decision in 2013 to put a cap on gas exports, upsetting companies who argue that the Israeli market is too small and exports are needed to justify huge development costs. With such regulatory uncertainty finding a potential buyer for Leviathan might prove to be challenging, although the field retains enough appeal for investors.

Unless a compromise is found — which seems to be a possibility — the Noble–Delek partners will be required to renounce one of their two major fields, Leviathan or Tamar, prompting, by the same token, a lengthy legal battle with the state. A potential compromise could include retaining Tamar and Leviathan, in exchange for selling Tanin and Karish, in addition to a requirement to sell the gas separately, thus creating competition. Another compromise might involve establishing a public company to buy the gas and sell it domestically at ‘reasonable’ prices, or even imposing controversial price controls. The latest plan proposed by Gilo involves breaking up the monopoly into several entities, each of which would sell the gas separately. The plan bars Noble from selling Tamar gas in the domestic market. In Leviathan, each partner would sell its share of the gas separately. In addition, the plan calls for Delek to sell its stakes in Tamar and requires Noble and Delek to sell their stakes in Karish and Tanin. The plan was reportedly rejected by the concerned parties. The Antitrust Authority — which initially said the plan was final and failure to abide by it would lead it to declare that the current ownership structure constitutes a restraint of trade, prompting unilateral action — has delayed its decision until the end of April to allow enough time to reach an agreed solution.

The debate surrounding the way the sector is being managed is so intense and widely backed by the public that a possible change in the institutional framework and the establishment of a regulatory authority cannot be ruled out.

The uncertainty over Leviathan’s ownership and possible development delays might jeopardize gas supply deals currently in discussion, including:

• A letter of intent with Britain’s BG, operator of an LNG plant in Idku, Egypt, to supply 7 bcm of natural gas per year over a period of 15 years. The deal is estimated to be worth around $30 billion.

• A preliminary deal with Jordan’s National Electric Company to supply 45 bcm of natural gas over a period of 15 years, for approximately $15 billion.

• A $1.2 billion deal with the Palestine Power Generation Company to supply 4.75 bcm of natural gas over a period of 20 years. The PPGC already declared in early March that the deal will be canceled within 30 days unless regulatory issues are solved.

[pullquote]Stability and the ability to anticipate the regulatory framework are particularly vital for the energy sector[/pullquote]

The US is a firm supporter of these deals, which it perceives as helping secure regional stability by fostering mutual interests, and has been instrumental in facilitating the negotiations. The Israeli move is therefore perceived by the Americans as an obstacle to the policies they are pursuing in the region. Special Envoy for International Energy Affairs at the Department of State Amos Hochstein, who visited Israel following Gilo’s announcement that he is revoking the deal with Noble and Delek, had two main messages to convey: first, the dispute will have consequences on the investment environment in Israel, and second, gas agreements with potential regional clients are an opportunity that must not be discarded.

Stability and the ability to anticipate the regulatory framework are particularly vital for the energy sector, one that requires major investments at the initial phase with the expectation of a return on investments. Regulatory uncertainty is already affecting the attractiveness of the sector and more difficulties are to be expected if the process drags on. Italy’s Edison, which prequalified for Lebanon’s first licensing round, is now reconsidering its decision to acquire the two small Israeli gas fields close to the Lebanese border, Tanin and Karish. But energy is also a strategic sector. If unchallenged, a monopoly would emerge supplying energy to broad sectors, and any change in future prices would affect the entire economy.

The desire to prevent that is understandable. But adapted measures should have been taken long ago if Israel wanted smooth sailing through the extractive process. The problem is the failure to anticipate any of the developments and always being a step behind: failure to anticipate the possibility of large discoveries and develop an adequate fiscal framework; the lengthy period to make a (first) decision on Noble and Delek forming a possible monopoly; making a decision that failed to address monopoly concerns (forcing them to sell Tanin and Karish, which together hold up to 3 tcf of natural gas, compared to Tamar and Leviathan’s approximately 32 tcf); and finally deciding, a year later, to retract that decision.

Recent developments in Israel are a case in point, demonstrating how important it is to set a policy as early on in the process as possible to avoid regulatory uncertainty. This is worth pondering in a country like Lebanon where de facto monopolies are tolerated.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Business

A roller coaster ride

by Nabila Rahhal
written by Nabila Rahhal

When Lebanon’s Civil War ended in 1990, Hamra was at a standstill in terms of nightlife, with almost no pubs or restaurants in operation on Makdessi, the street just north of the main road. In 2005, the roller coaster ride began its slow ascent with the opening of De Prague, a cross between a pub and a coffee shop, located next to HSBC bank. It was followed two years later by Le Rouge, a French restaurant.

But it was with the opening of Danny’s in 2009, a pub on what is now called the Alleyway, the narrow street connecting Makdessi to Hamra’s main road, and the neighboring outlets shortly after, that the street really took off. In less than two years, 32 pubs or restaurants had opened on Makdessi Street and its immediate vicinities, excluding Hamra’s main road, and it was considered a top destination for nightlife.

“What made Hamra so successful was that everyone knew it. It wasn’t a local destination but a national one. I had people coming to my venue Clé — on Wardieh Street, perpendicular to Makdessi — from Jounieh or Metn, saying that this was the first time they come to Hamra but they had heard so much from their parents about the nightlife here in the 1960s that they wanted to see it for themselves,” says Ussama Makarem, CEO of Makarem Group, which operates BistroBar on Makdessi Street among other hospitality venues in Beirut.

The descent

Although Makdessi Street began to lose some of its luster in mid 2013, when the street became too crowded and the outlets on it too loud, the venue operators Executive spoke to say Makdessi Street’s plummet began in earnest in early 2014, mostly because of the country’s security situation.

[pullquote]“Political issues really affected the street and many people got scared to come here and cut it off completely”[/pullquote]

Makarem recalls that 2014 started off on the wrong foot, as suicide bombings rocked the country, including at a Raouche hotel, and security forces raided the Napoleon Hotel just off Makdessi Street. “Political issues really affected the street and many people got scared to come here and cut it off completely,” he says.

Charles Frem, owner of Garcia’s in Hamra and Central Station in Mar Mikhael, also believes that the security situation, and specifically — according to him — the rumors which circulated regarding a possible explosion in Hamra, scared people from coming to Makdessi.

Those interviewed for the article all blamed the high concentration of beggars on Makdessi Street as another reason people started going elsewhere. “The other factor that also played a role in the slight decline of the area is, unfortunately and not to be prejudiced, the beggars that flooded to Hamra from the conflict in Syria,” says Saadi Hamady, owner of Poly Project Inc. which operates Bricks on Makdessi Street. “It is true there are beggars in many other areas in Lebanon but there was a high concentration in Hamra and Makdessi which annoyed the local clients who then preferred to go elsewhere,” said Hamady, adding that, on a positive note, the Syrian residents residing in the area helped support many of the businesses on the street, including his own.

In parallel to people growing uncomfortable with the climate surrounding nightlife on Makdessi Street, other areas such as Mar Mikhael or Badaro — which were similar to Makdessi initially, but newer and therefore more exciting for some — brought competition, according to Frem. Since the number of people living in Lebanon who can afford to go out is not that high, Makdessi Street understandably felt the strain. “We are all competing for the same piece of cake and that is why it is [survival of] the fittest in management, cost, quality and service,” explains Frem.

Hamady believes that the declining economic situation, both globally and locally, is also to blame for the decreased activity, not only in Makdessi but across Lebanon as well. “We definitely have less business than before but you have to understand people are living from paycheck to paycheck,” he says, adding that while there are venues that are able to attract wealthy customers who can go out every night, he is talking about the average, middle income Lebanese.

An indication of this difficult period is that, according to Anis Rbeiz, the real estate agent who brokered most of the rental deals for the Makdessi outlets, around thirteen venues on or in the immediate vicinity of Makdessi Street shut down within the last two years. Rubeiz also added that he had difficulty renting out these venues again.

On the way up

But nightlife on Makdessi Street is not over yet — in fact, it is slowly going uphill again with the opening of the Courtyard, a cluster of four resto-pubs under one roof just next to Alleyway, in October 2014.

According to Makarem, who operates BistroBar, one of the four venues in the cluster, all the venues are full on weekends and quite busy during weekdays. BistroBar, as an example, has a capacity of 120 people seated during the day and 220 people at night, when it turns into a bar style environment. “The new cluster, with its high ceilings and open design, has created some extra traffic to the area, but we have to see if it will be able to compete with the rooftops when they open in the summer,” says Frem.

Meanwhile, Hamady also agrees that the Courtyard has brought increased footfall to the opposite end of Makdessi Street, but says that Bricks has its own loyal client base and does not really depend on that extra activity. “We might get extra clients if the whole area is booming, but that would be the cherry on the cake, not something we would depend on,” he says.

[pullquote]“Makdessi … [is] no longer a national destination which people come to from all areas, like Mar Mikhael now is, but a regional one”[/pullquote]

Catering to the residents 

While Makdessi Street is on the rise again, the nature of its clients is changing. “Makdessi is catering to the residents of Hamra and the close surrounding areas. We are no longer a national destination which people come to from all areas, like Mar Mikhael now is, but a regional one,” says Makarem.

The purchasing power of those who frequent Makdessi has also changed according to Frem. “Makdessi now attracts those who get one drink each and appetizers to share. The places are indeed full but they are not making money,” he says, adding that this does not apply to some venues in the Courtyard which are attracting the big spenders. The average bill for a small dinner and two rounds of drinks for two people at Palma, one of the outlets in the Courtyard, is approximately $100 while a similar order at the other end of Makdessi Street would cost you half that amount.

As such, Makarem explains that his business approach to BistroBar was — keeping his target clientele in mind — to create a casual and laid back venue which can be enjoyed both day and night. BistroBar has a full French–Italian menu, which includes a salad bar during the day and live performances three nights a week. “It is a place that can be enjoyed by all age groups at any time,” he says.

The eternally charming Hamra

The food and beverage sector on Makdessi Street specifically, and in Hamra in general, does indeed have its ups and downs but all those interviewed insist that “Hamra will never die.” Being in close vicinity to AUBMC, two major universities and two international high schools — not to mention numerous businesses and banks — ensures that the area will have a steady flow of visitors, according to Frem and Hamady. “A lot of my customers are university students or foreign professors in these institutions who usually live around the area,” says Hamady.

Perhaps a show of good faith in Makdessi Street is that hospitality projects are still being developed there. A hotel and furnished apartments project facing Bricks is nearing completion, and Caramel, a boutique hotel with a restaurant bar called Propaganda in its lobby is under development by Frem himself and set to open in August (though Frem admits that he already owns the hotel and had begun the investment in its renovation before 2012).

[pullquote]The association is also collecting money for improvements on the street[/pullquote]

Hamady speaks of the recently founded Makdessi Traders’ Association which organized the Makdessi Street Festival last April and are organizing another edition for this May with the aim of bringing added activity to the street. According to Hamady, they are also collecting money from the businesses on the street for improvements and beautification projects, which include fixing the pavement and municipality street lights and adding some greenery. “They are working very seriously and have the support of the municipality and governor,” he says.

Whether riding high during 2010–2012’s peak years, or on a downward slump with half empty venues — or even something in between like we see now — Makdessi Street is still hanging on.

makdessi-pub-crawl-0.3

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Economics & Policy

One man’s army

by Matt Nash
written by Matt Nash

On a crisp February morning just before dawn, two boys walk down the narrow street leading to the center of the Sabra meat market with short knives tucked away in sheaths attached to their belts. Just a few months earlier, Health Minister Wael Abou Faour had told a press conference, “I’m embarrassed to show the media what the inspectors discovered at Sabra.” According to a writeup in The Daily Star on the conference, the minister said he’d also ordered the closure of a few butcher shops in the camp. When Executive visited in February, evidence of closures was nowhere to be found. One butcher — who asked not to be named — said the camp’s slaughterhouse had long been shuttered. Indeed, the daily Al Mustaqbal reported the closure back in 2003. Today, predawn Sabra is an open air market for wholesalers selling to retailers. Beef sold in the market is slaughtered elsewhere. For Hassan Merhi, a young man who only recently joined the family business, elsewhere is privately run slaughterhouses in Choueifat or Fanar.

[pullquote] “Actually, all over Lebanon they are slaughtering outside of the slaughterhouses”[/pullquote]

Merhi’s uncle used to ply his trade at the Beirut slaughterhouse. He says his family has been slaughtering for generations — claiming his great-grandfather used to walk sheep from Medina, Saudi Arabia, to Beirut. Refusing to be too specific or offer exact figures, he confides that transportation costs involved in moving operations from outside Beirut to Sabra are high so the family sometimes clandestinely slaughters somewhere in the city. Knowing that’s illegal, he won’t say where. Merhi’s cost saving scheme is not, however, unique. 

As is often the case in Lebanon, Executive was not able to get exact statistics on illegal slaughter practices, but Bassel Al-Bazzal, head of animal health services at the Ministry of Agriculture, knows it’s happening. “Actually, all over Lebanon they are slaughtering outside of the slaughterhouses,” he says, as he takes Executive on a virtual tour of the private and public slaughterhouses in the country. Repeatedly referring to a list compiled in 2013, which he says is confidential, Bazzal explains that there are a total of 14 licensed private slaughterhouses in the country — 12 of which are in Mount Lebanon. “But there are some [private] slaughterhouses that are not registered yet, so we can say there are more than this,” he says. Additionally, there are 13 public abattoirs run by municipalities.

[pullquote]“We inspect the places, not the process of slaughtering. It’s not possible to go at night”[/pullquote]

Monitoring mishaps

Licenses, he says, come from the Ministry of Industry while the Ministry of Agriculture provides a health registration number, which he explains is not exactly a license, but is necessary for a slaughterhouse to run legally, as per Law 949/1 from 2011. The Ministry of Agriculture has veterinarians on site to inspect meat post slaughter to ensure it is ready for market. The ministry also has inspectors who visit abattoirs to see if they comply with technical and health criteria, Bazzal explains. They visit during the day, after the actual killing — which takes place in the wee hours of the morning — is finished.

“We inspect the places, not the process of slaughtering. It’s not possible to go at night,” he says. 

Not seeing the process also decreased the usefulness of a recent and well publicized visit to the Beirut slaughterhouse by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Maurice Saade, the FAO representative in Beirut, tells Executive in a telephone interview that the body is refraining from making specific recommendations until members can see the abattoir in action. “We need to come back and visit once it’s reopened,” Saade says. He explains that the FAO has prepared a report and, as of mid March, planned to hand it over to the Ministry of Agriculture. He says that because the ministry commissioned the report, it will be the ministry’s call whether or not to make it public. 

Murky mandate

Both Bazzal and Walid Ammar, director general of the Ministry of Public Health, place the responsibility of regulating unlicensed slaughterhouses at the doors of the country’s various municipalities. Ammar explains that the ministry has 70 inspectors spread throughout Lebanon (which he says is too few, pointing to the 170 inspectors employed by the Ministry of Economy and Trade). These inspectors are under the administrative control of the governors of the country’s six governorates, meaning it is the governors who should be sending them out on inspections on a day to day basis, Ammar says. If ever there is a ‘health event’ — such as a concentrated outbreak of food poisoning — Ammar notes the ministry’s role is to order inspectors to investigate. Further, the ministry can send inspectors to do preventative investigations if authorities have reason to suspect a health event may be imminent. As an example, Ammar points to swimming pools, saying that last summer children got sick after visiting certain pools, so this year inspectors will monitor them before they open for the season.

[pullquote]Existing legislation does not directly address food safety, which means different ministries have overlapping authorities[/pullquote]

When it comes to food safety, Ammar recognizes there are problems in Lebanon, but admits it was not his first priority as an issue that needs to be addressed. He says that when a new minister takes office, he presents a list of priority interventions based on his own research for the minister to consider (unlicensed ‘beauty clinics’, for example). In the case of Wael Abou Faour, Ammar says the minister was the one to push hard on food safety. Ammar does argue, however, that the country needs a unified food safety law. Existing legislation does not directly address food safety, which means different ministries have overlapping authorities. Cabinet approved a draft law earlier this year but it is unclear when Parliament will consider the draft.

And while there has been no shortage of media hype surrounding a handful of serious cases of food poisoning, the numbers — while slightly outdated — paint a different picture. According to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Public Health, foodborne diseases are by no means an epidemic in Lebanon. For example, in 2011, there were only 311 cases of food poisoning reported to the ministry and only 15 documented cases of parasitic worms. In 2012, the most recent data, there were 319 food poisoning cases, and the number of people with parasitic worms jumped to 36, but that still represents 0.0009 percent of a population of 4 million.

[pullquote]“The health inspectors are the army of Abou Faour now”[/pullquote]

Numbers aside, Abou Faour seems determined to continue with his crusade, which Ammar says is putting stress on the ministry’s inspectors. “The health inspectors are the army of Abou Faour now,” he says. “It’s his own army,” he adds with a laugh. Asked if that army will outlive its general, Ammar is far from optimistic: “We need a bigger budget; we need more resources; but what we [really]need is other ministries [and the municipalities] to do their work.”

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail