Picture taken from Marcopolis.net
HMA Tom Fletcher asked three important questions to the Lebanese in regards to the latest discoveries of gas resources in Lebanon:
1- Do you have the courage to coexist?
2- Do you have a national vision? What kind of Lebanon do you want to see in 2020, when the gas revenues start to filter through?
3- How do you hold the state to account in delivering the benefits of these resources to the people?
Georges Sassine tried to provide an answer to the third question. Check out his interesting take on this subject [Here].
As far as I am concerned, I’d rather we stay away from the oil and gas resources.
We live in a corrupt society that already rips off the lebanese people. You think a major discovery of gas resources is suddenly going to change their corrupt minds. It will make them even more corrupt. Anyone who believes to the contrary has blinders on (just like horses) who only see what they want to see and don’t know the bigger picture. Either that or they’re benefitting from it.
In any case, here is a chance for Lebanon to become like the UAE and Qatar where the government fully supports its citizens through all stages of life by creating jobs and making all the basic necessities free. Unfortunately, chances are we won’t see a dime. The maximum they’ll do is pave a couple of highways to make us think they’re investing in the country.
sorry but the statement “As far as I am concerned, I’d rather we stay away from the oil and gas resources.” is simply not acceptable even if coming from a personal view.
this is a natural resource and will generate billions of dollars, gas & fuel energy and this is something we should embrace wisely instead of shying away from it.
everyone deserves a chance and Lebanon is not any better from other nations in African or north american for example where corruption is way way way more severe than in Lebanon and still they enjoy their natural resources to the fullest.
btw sorry for the grammar mistakes, just woke up 🙂
I do agree with you that we’d rather stay away from these resources but until we have a mature and responsible government that is able to run a country…we are uncapable of fixing a couple of potholes, in a country not bigger than a neighborhood in some countries… how about managing a coveted and precious resource?!
Najib has a point somewhere…
i’m against Lebanon exploiting his natural resource before Lebanese establish a well build and strong government with a transparent plan for the oil and gas benefits.
otherwise the same people stealing will steal more and will make double the effort to stay in power.
the rich will get richer and the poor..wont get any cent!
very good than wait till Israel steals ur gas & oil with its super advanced technologies in horizontal drilling, & of course we wouldn’t knw what hit us…
The plan if u read the article is very easy to establish, and of course would be done hopefully.
you are dealing with huge oil international oil companies like shell total and the likes, the tendering procedures and results just have to be done publicly , the same goes for the earnings. for this you have audit reports etc… dont underestimate your people, they are smart and will not be easily fooled by the government.
worst case scenario they end up taking 20% of the earnings to their pockets and the country benefits from the remaining 80% which is heaven compared to where we are now, in term of national deficit, credit rating, public projects, infra, etc…
I mean iraq is exploiting 40% and it’s a war zone and nigeria the same and it has no roads so you can not convince me lebanon being such a small country can steal more than 20% and the public and private sectors wouldn’t knw abt it…
so r u sure u do not want to pursue this? seriously? lol
like you will be stationed at the pumps counting barrels going to the vessels and down the pipelines. yeah, right.
we will have more militias feeding on oil and sabotaging others’ operations, and the environment will suffer.
خلّينا على الحشيش والأفيون..
Go back to sleep. no offense.
maybe it is cause I am an engineer that find ur comments baseless and illogical or maybe cause indeed they are, and this is the exact mentality that is keeping this country at its current stagnant state…
the gulf was a desert & fighting tribes when the oil was discovered look where they r now
African countries are still without infra, sewage (more than 20% of Nigerian population have not toilets) & still their economy is all based on oil.
instead of looking at the glass half empty, look at the glass half full and recognize that we are at least far more developed than these countries when oil was discovered in their soil. so we actually have a head start rather than an obstacle.
anyways it is pointless to keep answering back and forth and playing ping pong with a walls.
The article mentions a very popular principle called the “Netherlands disease” or also the resources curse. FYI, this curse affects ALL countries with a big wealth (which can also be industrial and not only natural). If you are most likely to be affected by such curse, this doesn’t mean that you don’t use it (e.g for corruption, check Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Iraq, Iran, Egypt etc……). Also, the article did not cover all the aspects of the curse as he limited it to corruption, while there are worse impacts of such resource (i.e inflation).
Also, Najib, this guy did not discover something new and unknown in Lebanon, and particularly, by the ministers.
Finally, there are plenty of solutions to circumvent this curse. (e.g avoiding the cash flow in the market through creating funds like for the future generations etc…)
Don’t worry and especially don’t panic. We have the right to use this resource and we should do.
Good that there good debate. But, that doesn’t answer much: we would need answers to 1) and 2) before tacking 3) “the logistical management” of the new state