House Speaker Nabih Berri addresses his audience following the May 2022 elections. (OLJ/Courtesy of Harakat Amal Press Office)
BEIRUT — Parliament Speaker Nabih Berry called on Wednesday for officials to "rectify" an alleged disparity in salaries among certain professions in the public sector, the state-run National News Agency reported. On Saturday, following reports in recent days that Banque du Liban had taken measures to allow judges and MPs to withdraw their salaries at a rate of LL8,000 rather than at the official rate of LL1,500, a BDL spokesperson denied knowledge of any such policy.
Here’s what we know:
• According to the NNA, Berri called for any increase in the salaries of certain public officials “to be rectified even if that means suspending it immediately, before it's too late.” He described such a measure as a “discrimination between one sector and another.”
• “This disparity will lead to collapses far worse than the current economic and financial disasters,” Berri also said. The Parliament speaker has made several contacts with officials on this issue, the NNA reported.
• In a Lebanon shaken by a serious economic crisis, civil servants regularly denounce the failure to increase salaries, especially in view of the depreciation of the national currency, which had at one point lost more than 95 percent of its value. Public sector employees are currently on an open strike that started a month ago to denounce the deterioration of their working conditions.