Title page
Contents
Summary 4
01. Introduction 5
02. The context of corruption in Lebanon 7
03. A history of corruption and poor governance 11
04. Combating corruption: Tools and barriers 15
No political will for transparency 16
Precarious protection to whistle-blowers 20
Averting the resource curse: Transparency in oil and gas sector legislation 24
The Anti-Corruption Commission Law: A potential 'paper tiger' 30
The 2020 Law on Illicit Enrichment: A tool for the settling of political scores 35
The National Anti-Corruption Strategy 41
05. Conclusion and recommendations 46
Annex 51
About the author 58
Acknowledgments 58
Table 1. Number of penalties imposed on public officials by the Central Inspection Board from 2012 to 2015 9
Table 2. Lebanon's CPI scores and rankings, 2012-20 13
Table 3. Lebanon's scores and ranking on the Open Budget Survey 2017 and 2019 13
Table 4. Key tenets of the Law on the Right to Access Information 17
Table 5. Key tenets of the Law on the Protection of Whistle-blowers 21
Table 6. Key tenets of the Law on Enhancing Transparency in the Petroleum Sector 25
Table 7. Key tenets of the Anti-Corruption Commission Law 31
Table 8. Key tenets of the 2020 Law on Illicit Enrichment 38
Table 9. The outcomes and outputs of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy 43
Boxes
Box 1. The Chehabists' attempts at administrative reform 51
Box 2. OMSAR and the tortuous path towards administrative reform in post-war Lebanon 52
Box 3. The Port of Beirut 53
Box 4. Public bodies used for private gains 54
Box 5. Electricity in Lebanon: Decades of mismanagement and dysfunction 56