The Director General of the Litani Water Authority, Sami Alawieh, announced Thursday in a statement that he presented to the Prosecutor's Office the recent report from the Court of Auditors on wasteful spending in the construction and maintenance of sewage treatment infrastructure in Lebanon, from purification plants to sewer networks.

This report, which was published last April by the Court of Auditors, painted a damning picture for the various stakeholders responsible for this sector. The investigation concluded that the losses amount to nearly $1 billion – $763 million plus interest, as these projects are carried out with international donations – resulting from the poor management of wastewater sanitation over several decades.

"The document serves not only as a performance audit but also as a tool in the hands of the judiciary," Judge Rosy Bou Hadir, one of the authors of the report, told L’Orient-Le Jour.

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The Litani Water Authority was driven by the desire to prompt judicial action. In its statement, the organization said that the Court of Auditors' report – which even dedicated a chapter to it – confirmed its observations over the years. The Litani River is the largest river in Lebanon, flowing through the Bekaa and southern Lebanon, and has become nearly an open-air sewer due to this monumental failure in wastewater sanitation, particularly in an industrial region.

The Litani Water Authority requested that the Prosecutor's Office launch its investigations based on this document to summon "all the officials responsible for this dangerous economic and ecological issue, the health and environmental impact of which on the population has been disastrous."