At Ramlet al-Baida, sewage is discharged directly onto the beach, just a few meters from passersby and bathers. (Credit: Nazih Rayess)
What if the biological pollution of our coasts by sewage was not an inevitability but a case of squandering public funds? What many well-informed observers already knew has just been documented in a report by the Cour des Comptes on the mismanagement of Lebanon's wastewater treatment sector. The report explains the reasons for this decades-old failure and estimates losses in the industry at nearly a billion dollars. Master Judge Rosy Bou Hadir, who co-authored the document with her colleague Rania Lakkis under the direction of the Court's first president, Judge Mohammad Badran, said the work responds to growing concerns about “a long history of poor performance and mismanagement of public funds” in this area. Speaking to L'Orient-Le Jour, she cited “several factors, ranging from bureaucratic inertia to outright negligence.” “This...
What if the biological pollution of our coasts by sewage was not an inevitability but a case of squandering public funds? What many well-informed observers already knew has just been documented in a report by the Cour des Comptes on the mismanagement of Lebanon's wastewater treatment sector. The report explains the reasons for this decades-old failure and estimates losses in the industry at nearly a billion dollars. Master Judge Rosy Bou Hadir, who co-authored the document with her colleague Rania Lakkis under the direction of the Court's first president, Judge Mohammad Badran, said the work responds to growing concerns about “a long history of poor performance and mismanagement of public funds” in this area. Speaking to L'Orient-Le Jour, she cited “several factors, ranging from bureaucratic inertia to outright negligence.”...