Rouba El Husseini
Beirut’s roads are riddled with potholes, many walls are covered in anti-government graffiti and countless street lamps have long since gone dark. At night, car drivers creep cautiously past broken traffic lights and strain their eyes for missing manhole covers, stolen for the value of their metal.
Many parking metres have been disabled in protest over an alleged corruption scandal, while cars are parked randomly on sidewalks. Charred patches from burnt tyres are seared into the asphalt downtown, reminders of angry street protests of past years against the political leadership held responsible for the malaise.
To many, the dysfunctional capital has become emblematic of a country mired in its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war after decades of mismanagement and corruption.
Much of Beirut’s infrastructure started falling apart long before last August’s massive portside explosion killed more than 200 people, levelled the waterfront and damaged countless buildings.
Amid the crisis, the Lebanese currency has collapsed and continues its downward slide at a sickening rate that in itself is deepening the problem.
As the currency has dived by more than 85 per cent on the black market, wary contractors are steering clear of any municipal repairs that are paid for in Lebanese pounds. When the Beirut city council called for tenders to fix lighting on streets and in tunnels, no one showed up at two meetings to assign bids last month. “Not a single contractor wants to work with the municipality,” a Beirut city council official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. But if the city raised its offers, the official added, “there would be nothing left in the coffers”.
The few contractors taken on in recent months, the municipality official said, have been hired to repair buildings ravaged in the enormous portside explosion.
The buildings were divided into 15 groups depending on the degree of damage, but the city only found firms willing to work in the four worst-hit categories.
Just months after signing on, the companies are complaining because the pound has lost even more of its value on the informal exchange market. Meanwhile, civil society and non-government organisations have often stepped in to help with the badly-needed repairs.
On other projects, companies contracted by the city are unhappy too — among them the waste management firm Ramco, which signed on to be paid the equivalent of $14 million per year, according to Beirut mayor Jamal Itani.
The sum is now worth less than $2 million.
“From time to time, (Ramco) threatens to suspend work until the fees are adjusted,” the anonymous official said. Many worry that this could lead to a repeat of Beirut’s 2015 infamous trash crisis, when a landfill closure led to festering rubbish piling up in the streets.
Public anger at the time sparked anti-government protests, years before unprecedented cross-sectarian demonstrations broke out in late 2019. — AFP
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