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Hadeel Farfour wrote in the Al-Akhbar newspaper:
Aside from the person responsible for storing donations of wheat in inappropriate warehouses, and if the matter is exaggerated, the most important thing is that the donations of flour that were presented to Lebanon allowed the “accommodation” of the bakers and curbed their “ambitions”, and they made mill owners bored of influencing their interests. The exhaustion of the Iraqi gift, or its depression, will make everyone return to the same tone about the increase in the price of a bar.
About a month and a half ago, the weight of the package of bread increased by one hundred grams (from 900 to 1000), and its price remained at 2000 pounds. This was the result of the 12,000 tons of Turkish “Barakat” flour provided by the World Food Organization as a gift to Lebanon in the context of the Beirut port explosion on August 4.
At that time, negotiations between the Ministry of Economy and the owners of mills and bakeries resulted in a “formula” that stipulated “granting” the donation to the mills, which in turn were in charge of distributing it to the bakeries according to a mechanism. which stipulated that bakers handed over 25% of Turkish flour and 75% of mill products in exchange for preserves. The price of a package of bread and its weight.
So far this formula still prevails, but what is left of the Turkish flour is enough for up to two weeks. Does this mean that the price and weight of a package of bread depend on the availability of flour aid? What about the 10,000 tons of Iraqi flour that the Ghobeiry municipality lifted yesterday afternoon, due to the issue of hundreds of bags of it running out in the stores of the Sports City? What is its destiny and who is responsible for its “management”, and will it have the “effect” of Turkish flour to increase the weight of the package of bread?
No flour shops
The Director General of Grains and Sugar Beets of the Ministry of Economy, Grace Barbary, confirmed in relation to “Al-Akhbar” that “the problem of the corruption of flour has been exaggerated due to its poor storage … and the deterioration of some bags weighing thousands of tons as a result of their transportation and shipment is a natural and accidental accident. ” He pointed out that seven Army officers inspected the warehouses of the Sports City before moving shipments to it, while the Ministry of Economy supervised the spraying with pesticides and the purchase of wooden slats to ensure their storage.
However, why are these stores approved in light of doubts about their suitability for that? Barbari responded that the assigned military received the aid: “These warehouses were presented as an option and approved in light of the lack of options before us. As we do not have flour storage centers, we demand that the aid be in the form of wheat due to the ease of storage. But we cannot impose our conditions, and the Iraqi government has crowded us in after insisting on unloading the loads, a day after announcing the delivery of aid.
The Vice President of the Federation of Bakeries and Ovens, Ali Ibrahim, explained that about seven thousand tons of Iraqi flour were stored in Sports City, and “the remaining three thousand were placed in the shops of the Shamsin bakeries due to the inability to bakeries to store them in them ”. Ahmed Hoteit said the mills are also unable to store flour and deliver the required quantities to bakeries “every day of the day.”
The main question, given the “abundance” of flour, is: Why not reduce the price of a package of bread? Or what prevents the distribution of free bread to the needy, for example?
Interested parties invoke that Iraqi or Turkish flour is not included in the manufacture of Lebanese Arabic bread “but is used in the manufacture of sweets or croissants, so do we distribute croissants, for example?” Barbari asks, noting that the Kiln and mill owners benefit from state support for incoming flour. candy industry. It seems that the concern of those interested in the donations of flour is not only related to the difficulty of storing it, but because it affects the work of the mills in Lebanon, which is what Barbari referred to when he asked: “Will we close the work of the mills if donations continue to arrive in Lebanon?
Hoteit does not deny that this is not in the interest of the 12 mills, but notes that the price of wheat has risen significantly around the world in recent weeks, “which inevitably leads to an increase in the price of a package of bread. .. However, the current abundance of flour would equal the cost. And it allows to maintain the current price ». This means that if Turkish flour has stabilized the price of a packet of bread over a three-month period, it means that the “blessings” of Iraqi flour won’t last long before bakery owners get back on track with raising the bar. poor bread price.
Source: News
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