Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said that “The election of a new president holds the key to resolving Lebanon’s crises. This event must take place soon; its fruit has ripened and I fear it will fall."
Berri stressed that "peace for Lebanon and making it to the “State” can only be achieved outside the alliances”.
“Lebanon, which impressed the world with its resistance, cannot give up on it while our land is still another state’s ambition. It can neither give up on the role and weapons of the resistance and its sovereignty, nor can it accept to keep its northern and southern borders under threat,” he added.
The launching ceremony of the Regie Libanaise des Tabacs et Tombacs" 2016 Sustainable Development" plan titled "Development Vision for a Brighter Tomorrow”, was held under the auspices of Berri and in the presence of the President of the Lebanese Economic Organizations former Minister - Adnan Kassar, the President of the Council for Development and Reconstruction - Nabil Jisr, the Chairman of the Council of the South - Kabalan Kabalan, the President of Lebanese Banks’ Association - Joseph Tarabay, the Chairman of the Middle East Airlines (MEA) -Mohammed El Hout, the Director General of the Ministry of Finance - Alain Bifani, the Director General of the Ministry of Economy - Alia Abbas, the Director General of Lebanese Customs - Shafiq Merhi, the President of the Association of Lebanese Industrialists - Fady Gemayel, the First Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon - Raed Sharaf al-Din, the Director General of the Council of the South - Hashem Haidar, the Banking Control Commission member - Ahmed Safa, the Responsible for Municipal and Optional Affairs in "Amal" movement -Bassam Tlais, a delegation from the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers (GCLW) headed by Vice President and President of the Union of Tobacco Farmers - Hassan Faqih, a number of Banks’ CEOs, businessmen, and presidents of unions, municipalities, in addition to the board of Directors of the Regie Libaaise des Tabacs et Tombacs and its management.
The ceremony began with the national anthem, followed by the word of the emcee Ms. Nahla Slim, and a documentary on the Regie’s sustainable development plan.
Seklaoui
Nassif Seklaoui, Chairman and General Manager of the Regie Libanaise des Tabacs et Tombacs, gave a speech in which he said:
"While the Regie blows out the candle of its 80th birthday, it gets ready to light a more radiant candle for the community in which it has taken root over eight decades.
Yes! We are 80 years old, yet we have never been as young, ambitious and visionary as we are today.
How did we start? And where do we stand today?
We made it the hard way.
Our beginning was not easy at all. We were required to live in the unknown, swinging between privatization, division or cancellation. We were in front of a conflict of wills in secret and in public, and sometimes in an open war. Throughout a long period of time, our energy was drained in battles meant to deter the planned harm against us; the aim was that we give up on believing in the recovery of public utilities.
This is where the challenge began. We would never accept, under any circumstances whatsoever, to take part in killing the hope in building the State.
Because those who seek to cause harm to the Regie wanted to restore the franchise from the State, the Law no. 157/99 stepped in to put an end to the contractual relationship with the company. This law wouldn’t have been enacted without the understanding of his Excellency and his quest to promulgate it. At this point, we had no other option but SUCCCEED.
The past few years have witnessed a rapid development on all levels:
First- In agriculture: The instructions of his Excellency that called for freeing tobacco seedlings from the prison of feudalism, political custodies, oppression and humiliation, have been translated into action. In fact, licenses have been distributed to 25 000 families, after they were limited to as few as 4% who used to own more than 90% of the licensed areas. History will tell how tobacco seedlings turned into a story of resilience and resistance in a land that the Israeli enemy wanted without people.
Second - In administration: a modern structure that brought down the number of wage-earners from 4,500 employees to less than a thousand; a thoughtful policy to build capacities through the establishment of the training center in collaboration with Bassel Fleihan Institute of Finance, and the launch of the incentivization policy in parallel with the culture of performance assessment.
Third- In industry: after considering that promoting the local produce as a guilt, our national industry is ranked first in terms of sales.
Fourth - In commerce and trade: An organized and nicely-done job, and a bold policy in fighting smuggling by individuals and companies.
What was the result? Revenues in the tobacco industry reached in the last five years two billion and 666 millions; the treasury share amounted to 75.5%, while this rate did not exceed 40% when the company had the franchise. These figures are enough to prove that today is the golden age of the Regie, and not yesterday.
And because work requires a team that does not have to worry about the future, your Excellency were the first to support hiring the employees as permanent staff, improving their conditions and increasing their earnings.
“Because we believe that integration with the private sector is a source of richness, we have succeeded in combining the capabilities of the private sector in the complementary works such as transportation, mechanization and management of hospitalization, while developing our own in all other areas," He said.
Seklaoui added: "Quoting the Sufi wisdom that says (Upon completion, regression starts), on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary, our gift today to the community of the future, is an unprecedented plan for sustainable development through which we seek to meet the expectations of our stakeholders and improve their quality of life now and in the future. This sense of responsibility is not new to our management that started its sustainable development activities early and was one of the first public utilities that recognized the importance of their role in the development of the local community and has achieved a lot on the levels of the employees and the customers.
And here we are today, laying the cornerstone for a long-term plan, based on promoting economic development, environment protection, fighting illicit trade & child labor, and improving the living of workers & farmers and the communities where we operate. We bear these goals in mind, and we are confident that we will see the results and harvest the fruit together in the upcoming ten years. This will also give us a competitive edge and will strengthen our relationship with the community, thus increasing our ability to attract investors, since our vision consists of "being one of the pioneer tobacco institutions in the Middle East and North Africa."
All of the above leads us to the conclusion that our goal has never consisted of overriding our powers, since development is not an option for us, nor is it an ethical cover for dealing with tobacco. In fact, denying our ethical commitment is in itself a disgrace in our path of success.
Today, we are turning the Regie Libanaise des Tabacs et Tombacs into an active institution economically, environmentally and socially. That is to say that this project has actually taken shape only after Minister of Finance Ali Hassan Khalil adopted it and approved its implementation mechanisms; and for this allow us to address him a thank you note. We also pay tribute to our colleagues in the Administrative Committee,Georges Hobeika, Mahmoud Sanjakdar, Issam Salman and Mazen Abboud, for their insistence on achieving success. We also salute the team of the Regie, namely Wael Dargham, Abdul Mawla Al Mawla, Rami Marhaba, Paul Ghanime, Mariam Hariri, and Nour Al Mawla, as well as the expert in development strategies, Mohammed Shamas, for going the extra mile in order to reach today’s action plan.
Allow me also to say the following:
The celebration of the eightieth anniversary of the Regie is not a celebration of all the company policies that managed the franchise; we have been brought up having in mind the struggle and suffering of tobacco farmers, versus the control of feudalism over their living. Therefore, we are actually celebrating the efforts of generations that have made and accumulated achievements and protected the institutions; some of the people I am talking about left us and some others are still among us like our dear friend Walid Salam."
“Without hope, life would have been impossible. The realities of our daily life looks bleak, and the country is unfortunately left to the fates; hadn’t it been for your wise initiatives, we would have lost hope and missed the future of our generations amid this political fog. We reaffirm today our permanent conviction that public utilities can succeed and be different and distinguished if their workers have the will and if it was taken care of, like your Excellency did."
Berri
Berri began his speech by saying: "What I see here is a “Development vision for a brighter tomorrow.”
"Parliament will hold tomorrow a 37thsession to elect a president. Is there any developmental vision for this story? It appears there is none. This is why, when a person gets angry, he would better grab a cigarette and turn towards tobacco.” He said.
Here’s to the tobacco plants, the blue bead of Lebanon, or rather its green one because of the envious and evil eye of lurking Israel that has been and still is staring at Lebanon.
Here’s to the tobacco plant, and the hands of tobacco that have been writing and telling stories on the struggle of our people, its steadfastness and resistance to mandate, occupation and deprivation since a hundred years, as the history was an extension for a resistance to endless invasions.
Here’s to the tireless close-to-God mothers who celebrate the harvest nights on the lights of lamps, cropping the yield from bottom to top.
Here’s to hard-working fathers who cultivate the land without making it suffer; this land that holds the seeds of our hopes from one season to another.
Here’s to the tobacco hands, grandchildren of sailors and fishermen who carried on the sails of their boats the first language left by their tribes like a breeze in the righteousness fields, weaving in summer the winter-season sweater using tobacco needles and yield yarns, and attaching them to the wishes’ nails next to the eyes of the photos, then spreading them in front of the eyes of the lady sun and the baby moon who walk hand in hand on the paths of the days and nights all the way up till delivery.
Here’s to our days and nights mixed with the sweat of the parents of the South, the North, the Beqaa valley and our dear Akkar’s remote areas.
Here is to the tales of endless fatigue, who look today for some rest laying on the arms of the trees and breathing fresh air in the terrace of the house or in the field cottage, reading at the light of eyes and in their hearts the lines of a development plan.
Here is to the management of the Regie Libanaise des Tabacs et Tombacs, represented by its mature and giving Director General, Eng. Nassif Seklaoui, the Board of Directors, the employees and the daily workers in the institution of the homeland and the citizen, expression their fight against repression and monopoly. In your eightieth anniversary, allow me to say this to you:
Happy anniversary! To three hundred years together….
I salute you, the frontline defense protecting the homeland, and the prime resistance defying aggression; you who have withstood deprivation, since the days of independence, living on a hope and dream that are coming true today.
I salute all of you who along the borders from the South to the North, from Rmeish, Aїta al-Shaab, Yarin, Aytaroun and Hasbaya to the different regions of the Bekaa and our dear Akkar.
I salute your mature time and your seasons that are an expression of your strong participation in the economic process as a work and production force in this country whose citizens fall in the doubt zone, suffer from unemployment and turn towards immigration all over the world; this is a reflection of the absence of official responsibility towards the present and future of the country.
I highly salute you, and I am honored today – as I always was - to meet with you on the occasion of your anniversary, you, the first social group that has had itself represented by a Union since the mid-twenties, and has led, since the late thirties - in November 1930 - a series of successive strikes against the Mandate Regie Company in response to the decision of the High Commissioner that consisted of going back to the monopoly system. You were the echo of the Imam al-Sadr and Bkerké voice that called for lifting oppression and for supporting the freedom of tobacco culture and commerce, facing the mandate and monopoly.
Since then, the Parliament took your side and defended the rights of the Lebanese capital in investing into tobacco whatever its form, and maintaining the rights of the State in freely disposing of the funds generated by this investment. This is why, I have the honor to stand on the stage of the uprising (Intifada) of 1936, on the stage of your martyrs Mustafa Al-Ashi, Mohammed El Jamal, and Akeel Daaboul, to stand on the stage of the uprising of Haneen and your uprising in 1973 in Ashura’ Square in Nabatiyeh during which martyrs Hassan Hayek and Naeem Darwish were killed, shot by the authority."
"Here you are today, after long years of struggle and fight, entering through the gate of your administration to the “Sustainable development plan related to the management of the Regie Libanaise des Tabacs et Tombacs”, a project for which the administration should be appreciated because it has been able even before this to prove that the State is not a management that loses resources but rather a profitable one and that the tobacco industry represents a model "in achieving results unlike other departments that are not supposed to lose; that is to say, how could the water partner and the electricity partner lose and up till when we will keep giving excuses for not being able to handle collection?” He added.
Your role testifies that the State CAN own productive and lucrative industries that generate funds "not by raising the fees applied on foreign tobacco brands, but through the power of the work and production of the Lebanese people since the employees and beneficiaries of the cultivation and manufacture of tobacco represent one tenth of the Lebanese people; I also think now that the issuance of new licenses and expanding cultivated areas would stabilize more families and keep them in their lands by providing decent job opportunities; it would also possibly limit immigration especially that "the immigrant Lebanese are facing today, in the host countries, major financial hardship resulting from the decline in the price of the national currency and from preventing the transfers as a result of the collapse in oil, stocks and gold prices."
Berri added: "I probably mean by this the style of a management that is swimming against the current towards the State and that is celebrating today its eightieth anniversary. It is the interpretation of a dream that includes transforming the establishment into a role model on the national level, as a modern productive management that reflects a renewed vital start through an unprecedented plan for sustainable development on the level of the public sector, considering that sustainable development is a duty, not an option, and that this plan, which is based on good-quality, is committed to supporting national economic growth, participates in giving added value to the local community, respects and achieves economic behaviors that value the social and economic environment and keeps resources for future generations.
This project that achieves competitive experience and good reputation addresses the entire Lebanese society and all the stakeholders in the work of the Regie Libanaise des Tabacs et Tombacs, especially "municipalities and farmers, following methodological executive steps and based on the elements that achieve sustainability for the work of the establishment. It also fight against illegal trade and for applying the standards of agriculture that depend on awareness, denounces child labor, takes part in supporting health, rationalizing energy consumption and implementing sustainable projects such as organization and involving society in the plan.
Blessed be the launch of this plan; and here I recall all my commitments and promises through my participation in your events and occasions, reiterating that I will be in the forefront of your work as to the following:
1 - Drafting a national social work charter that ensures health social security and elderly insurance.
2 – Organizing the tobacco agriculture industry, increasing arable lands, and allowing the increase in tobacco crops, which would create more job opportunities and therefore a bigger number of families would benefit thereof.
3 – Launching projects according to the plan to modernize the local industry of cigarettes, waterpipe tobacco, all the way down to the cigars, which the Cuban government has approved as President Castro told me personally; Although the Cuban government expressed its approval, unfortunately the plan was not implemented because of a tax decision that has not been taken by the Lebanese Government.
4 - Increasing insurances and guarantees that would prevent farmers from turning into victims of natural disasters.
5 - Giving the approval on paying compensations for cultivated tobacco lands affected by the Israeli attacks if they were exposed to fire or required sweeping.
Let’s seize this occasion to tackle the pressure that Lebanon is being subject to and for which we can come up with solutions. We can find a constitutional way as soon as we get to elect a President. In fact, Lebanon is the best spot in the Middle East and I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I say the best spot in the Arab region. Look at the full half of the glass! Lebanon has as many economic competencies as most of the world.
On the security level, Lebanon is now more secure than, not only the Arab world, but also the Middle East and I would even say the major part of Europe - allow me here to express my condolences to Belgium that lost today 23 martyrs until this hour and every day we hear about an accident, even in Europe -.
Thankfully, this is due to our dialogue, cohesion and unity, and also thanks to our military and our security forces, knowing that what Lebanon endures - and this is a duty -, has never been witnessed in whole Europe; I have never read, knew or heard about a country, with a number of population amounting almost to 4 million people, yet still welcoming 2 additional millions of Syrians and Palestinians and accomplishing its duties towards them. Any European country with a number of population exceeding millions, would still complain about 30 or 40 thousand immigrants. In the European Union and in the European parliament, I have been asked about this by people complaining of having some Syrian refugees there, and here is what I said: look at Europe’s populated area compared to what you have now in Europe. The number of refugees is 0.11 percent of the population of Europe as a whole, and still you are complaining, whereas in Lebanon they represent almost 50 percent of the population. We might be the only ones not to know the real value of this marvellous country."
He also added: "Arabs love us more than we love ourselves… Europeans love us more than we do… Even God loves it more than us; we do not love ourselves, because all the things that God created for us were just fabulous, and this is a reality. Our problem now consists of electing a president, in order for matters to ease - even though the Constitution does not prevent the Government and the Parliament from functioning in full capacity, regardless of the “nonsense” things that we keep hearing. We have a national industry in our democracy; we have 18 communities and one has to take into account the sensitivities, this is why we cannot get things done, even legally. Easing up these matters depends on the Presidential elections.
Let’s seize this occasion to tackle the pressure that Lebanon is being subject to and for which we can come up with solutions. We can find a constitutional way as soon as we get to elect a President instead of continuing to play the ongoing game of hide and seek or rather the game of “blinding Lebanon” while we sing in the background “I am blind, I cannot see, yet I am a sword striker”, because the absence of the head of the state leads, as I just said, to disrupting legislation and tying up the hands of the Cabinet, i.e. frankly, making the State’s functions dependant on the election of a President; and I as said in Belgium, this event should be close as its fruit has ripened and I fear that it will fall.
Peace for Lebanon and making it into the State can only be achieved outside alliances. We only sense the interest of the residing Lebanese and the Diaspora as a Lebanese, Arab, Muslim, Christian and international necessity, outside the lineups and the ongoing tug-of-war game that is currently taking place in more than one location.
Lebanon represents a laboratory for the coexistence of religions and civilizations in this global village versus the clash of civilizations.
Given the modern experience of Lebanon since the calamity of Palestine and facing the Israeli aggression, it can only be a resistance force to protect its sovereignty and to prevent Israel from stealing its water resources & territory, from occupying its strategic location and from stealing its maritime and natural wealth, which requires demarcating the maritime borders as Lebanon has been claiming.
Lebanon, which impressed the world with its resistance and which withstood and defeated the Israeli war machine in summer 2006, cannot give up on its resistance as long as Israel continues to occupy our land and still has ambitions therein. It can neither give up on the role and weapons of the resistance, nor can it accept to keep its northern, southern and west borders under threat.
In order to ensure civil peace, put an end to Israeli greed, and get out of the reality of its political crisis, Lebanon should resort to national dialogue, on the background of the restoration of Saudi-Iranian relationship given their positive effect, and learn to trust this relationship despite all of what is being said.
Restoring the drive of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran is an Islamic and Arab need and represents a Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni, and Bahraini necessity. Challenges and tensions should be stopped given their tough repercussions on the peoples of the region."
Berri added: "We reaffirm our support to the decreasing level of violence that we are witnessing today in Syria, to the cease-fire and to the return to negotiations; we see today, as we have seen, since the very first days of the Yemen events, that it is necessary and well needed to opt for the political solution and understanding among the political components.
We believe that the continuance of the war against terrorism and its state in Syria and Iraq is something that requires common nations’ effort, and perhaps an international operations’ room coupled with drying the sources of terrorism and stopping to provide arms across the borders."
"Once more, congratulations for successfully accomplishing the Regie’s sustainable development plan, and for the achievements you have made in collaboration with the tobacco companies in terms of distributing school aids to four hundred and fifty successful students in more than one district, though they are still limited to the districts of the South and should reach the other districts.
I wish you every success in the implementation of the development plan for the benefit of one tenth of the Lebanese people, represented by the tobacco sector, and I hope that the Regie would be a role model for all governmental institutions. I hope your experience makes them jealous and follow. Well, after all, jealousy is not always bad, except between men and women!” he concluded.