Beirut — Ziad Hayek, former secretary general of the High Council for Privatization and Partnerships (HCPP) and current president of the World Association of PP Units and Professionals, officially presented his presidential candidacy in Lebanon on Friday.
“The President must not manage the crisis but solve it,” Hayek said at a press conference, recalling that he had contributed to the management of similar crises when he was a government adviser from 2006 - 2019.
“It is also necessary to recover the confidence of the international community through transparency and to win the confidence of the people,” he continued.
Hayek said he would prioritize to “put an end to the subsidies which are still maintained and to come directly to the aid of the poor,” and assured that he will work to find solutions to the public debt, to the electricity blackouts via recourse to renewable energies and the failing state of public infrastructure in the country.
He also stated that he is in favor of the application of administrative decentralization and supports the “presence of women within the ruling class.”
Hayek has worked in investment banking with Citigroup, Salomon Brothers, Bear Stearns, in London and in the United States. He was also the co-founder and CEO of Talaya, up until 2016.
From 2006-2019, he was appointed secretary general of the HCPP, a body affiliated to the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He also campaigned for the adoption of the law on Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) which was passed in Parliament in Aug. 2017. This law establishes the governance and institutional arrangements that can signal to the private sector that effective and transparent processes for the identification, development, negotiation, procurement, implementation and monitoring of PPP projects.
Regarding Hezbollah’s weapons, Hayek said that there is a need to restrict the possession of arms to the state, and added that there “is a need to activate the role of the Lebanese Army and improve the work of the Internal Security Forces.”