Politicians must do their homework next time
Since the government’s original decision to allow diesel-powered vehicles into
Lebanon eight years ago was taken without sufficient foresight, it comes as little
surprise that a solution to the grievances of mini-bus drivers has been reached at the
11th hour.
Solving problems under pressure is exactly what the country does not need. But once again,
politicians have done a slap-dash band-aid job, buying back a fleet of vehicles and
re-exporting them to some unknown, nonenvironmentally friendly country, instead of taking
a step back and being creative.
To be fair, the creative solution that we should have come up with is not an easy one. It
requires doing one’s homework ahead of time, so that politicians will not discover
that the compensation and incentive plan they offer up is unworkable, according to vehicle
firms operating in Lebanon, and largely unsatisfactory, judging by the several hundred
families who have camped out in the Beirut Central District in recent days.
Other voices have been raised of late, primarily by the business community and our often
catatonic labor leaders, pleading for the import of “clean diesel,” since it is
widely used around the world.
These same people must be aware that Lebanon is not Switzerland counting on the
government to oversee the proper use of fuel is not feasible, due to a lack of human
resources. Policemen can’t monitor more than a million engines, to ensure that luxury
items like catalytic converters haven’t been removed. Meanwhile, we have yet to move
seriously toward establishing an efficient system of roadworthiness centers, which should
be doing this job in the first place.
The government’s ham-handed dealing with the diesel issue, naturally, has raised the
ire of industrialists, who have incurred massive losses, in part because our politicians
forgot that some luxury goods, like bread, are delivered by diesel-powered vehicles.
Since private sector people say that mini-buses only constitute 6 percent of diesel
consumption, we assume the government’s sudden environmental campaign involves going
after the smallest and easiest to crack part of the equation, namely taxi drivers and
mini-buses, which does not exactly inspire trust and respect by citizens for their elected
representatives.
This experience should teach the government a valuable lesson, which is to be as little
involved as possible in the solution. Do your homework, and be creative. Lebanon
doesn’t need and can’t envision a government heavily involved in resolving a
massive environmental problem when it can’t even produce a master plan to regulate
the land transport sector.
Our politicians, whether in government or in Parliament, have only themselves to blame for
the latest mess. They should come clean and admit their failure to think clearly, act
decisively, and hold fast to a well-thought out solution, and not cave in because they
didn’t get it right to begin with.
The people who have held their vehicle registration papers legally paid for as recently
as this month up to the television cameras and who have burned their civil registration
papers to signal their feelings about Lebanon’s treatment of small-scale
entrepreneurs, deserve that much.
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