Long queues in front of bakeries have appeared in recent weeks as the country suffers from a severe bread crisis. (Credit: AFP)
BEIRUT — The head of the bakery owners’ syndicate in Mount Lebanon and Beirut, Ali Ibrahim, on Wednesday announced his resignation from his position and said that he “cannot do anything anymore to protect the noble bakery owners.”
Here’s what we know:
• In a statement, Ibrahim said that “after the exacerbation of the recurrent crises in the bread-making industry and bearing the responsibility on the bakery owners … I could not be a false witness to all what is happening in this sector.”
• Long queues in front of bakeries have been visible in recent weeks as the country suffers from a severe bread crisis. The war in Ukraine has disrupted international wheat supply chains, leading to wheat shortages and enhanced panic buying in Lebanon which is already suffering from an unprecedented economic crisis.
• Last Thursday, the parliamentary committees approved a World Bank loan of $150 million to Lebanon to finance wheat imports. The loan, which was approved by the World Bank on May 6, was made to “finance immediate wheat imports to avoid the disruption in supply over the short term and help secure affordable bread for poor and vulnerable households,” a World Bank spokesperson told L’Orient Today.
• Economy Minister Amin Salam accuses bakeries of hoarding wheat and claims that bakeries and some merchants benefit from the subsidized wheat. On June 8, Salam said that security sources had informed him that the smuggling of wheat out of the country has reached a rate of 40 percent of the wheat entering Lebanon, adding that his sources have informed him that “bread bundles are being smuggled [to Syria] on mules.”