[ad_1]
On Wednesday, the Supreme Defense Council held a session dedicated to presenting the security conditions in the country and the measures to be taken to combat smuggling operations. The decision was made to close all illegal crossings and increase the number of border posts. Records of the right of each participant or facilitator in smuggling operations.
It was also decided to present recommendations of the Supreme Defense Council to the Council of Ministers to legislate some measures, especially those that need to amend laws regarding customs rights and confiscation of contraband mechanisms and others.
Hours after announcing the decisions, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech that “the problem of smuggling and illegal crossings on the borders with Syria cannot be solved by Lebanon alone. The Lebanese army cannot can avoid smuggling only across the border, “considering the solution to” bilateral cooperation “” between the two countries.
This is what Lebanese observers saw as a clear push for the Hassan Diab government to work and coordinate with the Syrian government. The Lebanese know very well that their borders with Syria are subject to Hezbollah and Iran more than to Bashar Assad’s forces.
The relationship with Syria is a controversial issue between Lebanese political parties and Hezbollah itself is accused of facilitating this illegal smuggling of materials that benefit its militias fighting under the flag of Iran in Syria in support of regime forces in Damascus.
Parties not represented in government, led by the Progressive Socialist Party and the Lebanese Forces party, called for an investigation into the issue of smuggling diesel and flour into Syria. The Progressive Party, led by Walid Jumblatt, submitted a report to the Discriminatory Prosecutor’s Office.
Accusations are generally made in Lebanon of Hezbollah and its ally, the Free Patriotic Movement, to profit financially from smuggling by facilitating the work of mafias across the border.
Gas Station Owners Union Captain George Brax last week threatened to attack and block roads if the government did not limit the solution to the millions of liters of diesel smuggled into Syria.
“We no longer find quantities to buy in the local market,” said Al-Braks, “we are going to strike and block the roads,” he said, adding that “there is a gang that steals day and night and the state cannot stop it.” .
The controversy over “smuggling” across the border between the two countries is not new to Lebanon, which is facing a diesel shortage in the last period, but the Corona virus epidemic and the collapse of the Lebanese pound again sparked the controversy to shed light on customs evasion through the smuggling of goods from Syria to Lebanon, which also includes vegetables, fruits, food products, cotton, etc.
Smuggled products flooding the Lebanese market with materials not subject to customs duty pose a threat to locally manufactured products and contribute to the depression of Lebanese agricultural products whose cost of cultivation and distribution on the market is higher than smuggled from Syria.
Despite the huge price increase in Lebanon as a result of the economic crisis, the prices of fuels, including diesel, have not changed, as they are still subsidized by the state. That is why smugglers benefit from the price difference and sell at high prices to smugglers in Syria, which has suffered from a fuel crisis since last summer.
Another issue that the Lebanese authorities are investigating is the import of fuel that does not meet the specifications in favor of EDL through a company owned by the Algerian Sonatrach Group. On Wednesday, the prosecution claimed 12 people, including government officials, in the case, along with ministers negotiated by the Energy Ministry of the Free Patriotic Hezbollah Party, a Hezbollah ally, founded by President Michel Awar and led by his son-in-law, former Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil.
Rampant corruption in public institutions has gradually become one of the causes of the economic collapse that Lebanon has been witnessing for months, and one of the most important reasons that led the Lebanese to demonstrate without precedent against the political class since 17 October.
