tayyar.org – in front of the ABC complex

The ABC Dbayeh complex booth hosted a protest booth held by merchants and employees of shopping complexes in Beirut, during which they raised a loud voice, calling on those charged with state affairs to return to the closure decision that was made in compliance. of the recommendation of the Monitoring Committee on the outbreak of the Corona pandemic in Lebanon, given the damage caused by the pressing economic conditions that cast a shadow on all Lebanese, with the participation of the president of the Beirut Merchants Association, Nicolas Al-Shammas.

Aishti
Following the national anthem, Aishti store owner Tony Salameh said that “officials are invading ‘servants’ who are obliged to implement decisions, pay taxes, retain their employees and not carry weapons to confront the forces of security when they come to force them to close “, indicating that” we have not seen any of these “. The system that has left us and our employees facing bankruptcy and closure. “He said,” For almost a year, we have been suffering from the calamities we inflict on ourselves.
Review what happened this year and the support that the state will provide us. On October 17, all banking facilities were frozen and our money confiscated at the banks. However, we preserve our institutions and our employees. “

He added: “When the Covid pandemic arrived, we initiated the closure of our own free will for a month and a half, then the arbitrary decisions to close and open began to hit us with all the losses that resulted from that for us because of our preparations and our obligations. to deliver goods, until the explosion occurred on August 4, which destroyed us all and abandoned us. Our children deserted and our employees were injured and we were the ones who helped them with the treatment, repair of houses and cars, and our workshops were closed for a month and a half due to the lack of compensation pending the system report, the judicial report that at less talks about an accident that causes insurance companies to pay us about two billion dollars to be able to resume work, especially in stores. Which have been closed to protect our employees. “

He criticized the reluctance “to issue the results of the promised investigation within five days, which they refused to issue in order not to show its shortcomings,” noting that “the recent closure decision by Covid will lead to the closure of the two stores. that continue to operate until now and thus send employees home due to lack of capacity. ” By the authority on material assistance and compensation. “

And it demanded “an indictment within a week so that the insurance companies give us money to be able to repair our workshops and our houses before the onset of winter.” He concluded: “Leave us, so we know that we will work.”

Deacon
In turn, Nicolas Shammas expressed the full solidarity of the Beirut Merchants Association with all actors in the commercial sector, and said: “Your case is correct and your demands are legitimate. In the nature of the case, the association expresses the opinion of the capital, but is also the spokesperson for all Lebanese regions and for the various commercial sectors, shops, markets and shopping centers. Most importantly, we respond to and defend employers and employees alike. “

Shammas warned that “the commercial sector almost breathed its last after a repeated and rapid series of stoppages, financial, monetary, economic and health crises, which led to the explosion of the port. The ground shook under the commercial sector,” referring to to “the fall in commercial activity to the level of seventy to ninety percent, according to the sectors, which caused the closure of a third of the shops and commercial establishments, and the putting out of service of between four hundred and five hundred thousand activists, permanent or partial, in the commercial sector and the rope on the tractor.

And he considered that “all these disadvantages and the Corona pandemic have reached us as if what is in us did not reach us,” stressing that “we take the Corona pandemic seriously to the extreme, since last March and not today, and we have committed ourselves and we have disciplined ourselves with the other, and basically the Minister of the Interior gives testimony on this issue. Highlighting “the application by the commercial sector of social distancing measures, putting on masks, sterilizing hands and taking heat. Traders received a score of 91.75 from a specialized company, for their commitment to these measures ”.

Shammas spoke of “malice in the closure decision in the face of the commercial sector’s commitment to the procedures, as if they were taking revenge on us because we are obliged to implement the laws while atrocities are committed in other places without being monitored or monitored.”

ABC complex
In turn, Abc Company lawyer Waheed Aoun said: “The pain is one and the suffering is the same when the owner of the complex or the merchant is affected by their investment, so it is natural that this negatively affects to the employees who fight for their livelihood, “asking” not to bid for us as ABC complexes in the application of prevention and safety standards. ” The public, while criticizing us for the extent of our strict enforcement of these standards, including by customers and employees, we will not be rewarded for our excesses by following public safety rules by deciding to shut down while people lie and he has fun in certain areas, and the leveling is only done on us because we are older.

He said: “Our insistence on opening our complexes is not because of profit or loss, because profit has long since disappeared, but in our attempt to resist in order to pay employee pensions, and the continuity of more than ten thousand families in a complex, and therefore hundreds of thousands of families if we collect a number of Employees affected by the closure decision. “

He added: “We do not defend purchases, but employees’ salaries, and salary has priority in our accounts, and no one has the right to hold us responsible for oversights.”

Aoun considered that “arbitrary and ill-considered decisions threaten the existence and continuity of long-standing institutions. ABC has turned eighty-four years old, with everything that has happened and that we have not witnessed what we are witnessing today in terms of collapse. economic, loss of currency, the devastating explosion in Beirut and the inaction of the insurance companies that we have not seen a penny of until now and losses. ” big”.

He concluded: “A cry from the entire commercial sector: don’t help us, just keep going, maybe we’ll survive and all these families survive with us.”

The mall
Then, George Kamal of Azadea Company reviewed the path of his return from France to Lebanon and the subsequent opening of the mall branches in the different Lebanese regions, up to Tripoli today, and what happened we closed in Al Habtoor without returning, and we freeze the branch in Saida, and the Jbeil branch on standby, and the only branch that Dbayeh branch is still operating.

He added: “We decided to continue, but Covid made things worse, committed to the required standards and went further, and despite that they made the decision to close down, with what this means for the stability of the families of our employees. We do not want to collide with this authority and we will continue with it or without it, the only cry we raise. On your face: Don’t support us, as other countries do, just don’t be an additional burden on us and above the burden borne by the private sector.

In conclusion, he called on the state to “have compassion on us and our employees and return to this decision to heal our wounds and those of our actions and revive our economy.”

Mike sport
Mike Sport owner Sameer Saliba said: “We had made the decision to close our business three months ago due to the high dollar exchange rate, but we backed out because we are responsible for 400 families, and we decided to find a way to cope to the crisis that the country is going through. “

He added: “They want to turn us into a ‘beggar’ people to spur us on, but they are wrong because we are a people that want to live and open complexes and commercial establishments, and instead of putting us in they wrote two because we will continue, so not even the explosion in Beirut stopped us “wishing the Beirut Merchants Association if it made the decision to reopen. In order not to retract his decision, we must support each other. “

In conclusion, Aoun praised “the booth organized by the ABC group and the ability of the private sector to organize well and meet standards.”

The stand ended with a shout from two employees urging “the authority to reverse the closure decision in the interests of the continuity of the employees’ families.”