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07.13.26

Rebuilding Trust Before Rebuilding Homes in Lebanon

Jamal Ibrahim Haidar

The success of reconstruction will not be measured solely by how many temporary homes are erected, but by whether every public pound can be traced, every contract can be scrutinized, and every affected family can see that need - not influence - determined who received assistance.

Lebanon’s Council of Ministers has approved a resolution allowing the Higher Relief Commission and the Council for the South to purchase prefabricated housing units through direct contracting under Article 46 of the Public Procurement Law, following a market price survey, in order to shelter families whose homes were destroyed during the recent Israeli attacks. The humanitarian rationale is compelling. Families who have lost their homes cannot wait through lengthy procurement procedures while remaining displaced. Emergencies demand speed. Yet Lebanon’s experience demonstrates that emergencies also expose public institutions to heightened risks of corruption, waste, clientelism, and public distrust. The challenge, therefore, is not to choose between rapid relief and sound governance, but to ensure that emergency procurement remains transparent, competitive, economically responsible, and accountable from the first contract to the final delivery.

Lebanon has repeatedly confronted this dilemma. Following the 2006 war, billions of dollars flowed into reconstruction through public agencies, municipalities, political organizations, charities, international donors, and private initiatives. While thousands of families benefited from rapid assistance, subsequent reports by oversight bodies, parliamentary committees, investigative journalists, and civil society organizations documented concerns about overlapping compensation, inconsistent beneficiary selection, weak documentation, fragmented coordination among institutions, and limited transparency regarding procurement and public spending. Similar governance concerns emerged after the Beirut Port explosion, where confusion over beneficiary identification, duplication of aid, and fragmented reconstruction efforts weakened public confidence. These experiences should not discourage rapid intervention today. Rather, they provide valuable lessons on how to rebuild more effectively and more credibly.

The exceptional authority provided under Article 46 should therefore be understood as an exception to lengthy competitive procedures - not as an exception to transparency, documentation, or financial discipline. Every emergency contract should leave behind a complete public record explaining why direct contracting was necessary, how suppliers were identified, how prices were surveyed, how technical specifications were determined, and why the selected contractor represented the best value for money. Public procurement legislation exists not merely to prevent corruption but also to ensure that scarce public resources purchase the greatest possible benefit for citizens. Emergencies do not diminish that responsibility; they heighten it.

Value for money should become the guiding principle of every procurement decision. Lowest price alone is not necessarily the best outcome if lower-quality housing requires repeated repairs or early replacement. Likewise, excessively expensive solutions that provide only marginal improvements waste resources that could otherwise assist additional displaced families. Procurement authorities should therefore evaluate bids according to transparent criteria that combine price, quality, durability, maintenance costs, delivery speed, energy efficiency, and supplier reliability. Publishing these evaluation criteria before contracts are awarded would reassure citizens that procurement decisions reflect objective economic considerations rather than personal influence.

The government’s decision requires market price surveys before contracting. Those surveys should themselves become public documents. Citizens should know which firms were consulted, what quotations were received, how technical differences were evaluated, and why one supplier ultimately prevailed. Publishing unsuccessful quotations, while protecting genuinely confidential commercial information where necessary, would significantly reduce suspicions of price inflation, hidden commissions, or favoritism. Transparency creates competition even when procurement is conducted through direct contracting.

Emergency procurement should also become an engine for local economic recovery rather than merely a mechanism for purchasing temporary housing. Whenever Lebanese manufacturers can produce prefabricated housing units, construction materials, furniture, insulation, electrical equipment, doors, windows, plumbing components, or other required inputs at competitive prices and comparable quality, procurement authorities should prioritize domestic production over imports. Every unnecessary imported component represents economic activity, employment, and industrial demand that could instead remain inside Lebanon. Reconstruction spending should therefore multiply its impact by simultaneously rebuilding homes and revitalizing productive sectors.

Particular attention should be devoted to manufacturers, workshops, contractors, and suppliers operating in the South and in other regions directly affected by the war. Many of these businesses have suffered physical damage, declining revenues, interrupted production, and workforce displacement. Awarding contracts to qualified firms from affected areas - provided they satisfy transparent technical and financial criteria - would transform reconstruction spending into an instrument for regional economic recovery. The objective should never be preferential treatment detached from merit, but rather ensuring that local firms are fully able to compete fairly for public contracts. Rebuilding communities requires rebuilding local businesses as well.

The same principle applies to employment. Contractors receiving publicly financed reconstruction contracts should be required, whenever feasible, to recruit a substantial share of their workforce locally, particularly from communities affected by the conflict. Temporary housing projects can provide immediate employment opportunities for carpenters, electricians, welders, plumbers, drivers, technicians, engineers, machine operators, and general construction workers. Public procurement should therefore create not only physical assets but also temporary income, local skills, and economic activity. Reconstruction succeeds more fully when wages circulate within affected communities instead of immediately leaving them.

Waste of public money often begins with poorly defined technical specifications. Citizens should therefore be able to examine exactly what government is purchasing. Housing units should have publicly available specifications covering dimensions, insulation standards, structural safety, expected lifespan, warranty provisions, accessibility requirements, installation costs, maintenance obligations, and environmental performance. Standardized specifications enable engineers, academics, journalists, and professional associations to compare prices objectively and determine whether taxpayers are receiving reasonable value. Transparency regarding technical standards is among the strongest safeguards against overpricing.

Accountability extends beyond procurement into the selection of beneficiaries. Every application submitted by displaced households should receive a unique reference number allowing applicants to track the status of their file electronically or through municipal offices. Clear eligibility criteria, application deadlines, verification procedures, reasons for approval or rejection, and expected timelines should all be publicly available. Applicants should never be left wondering whether their file has disappeared, whether another household has been favored unfairly, or whether unofficial payments are necessary to accelerate processing. Administrative opacity creates fertile ground for bribery and informal commissions. Administrative transparency eliminates much of that opportunity.

Municipalities should become the cornerstone of beneficiary verification. Local authorities possess detailed knowledge of neighborhoods, property ownership, household residency, and actual displacement. Municipal councils can verify damaged properties, certify occupancy where documentation has been lost, update beneficiary lists, identify duplicate applications, and confirm that temporary housing reaches those genuinely in need. Because municipal officials remain directly accountable to their communities, they are often better positioned than centralized agencies to detect irregularities before they become systemic.

Domestic oversight institutions should complement municipal monitoring. Universities, engineers' syndicates, architects, accountants, bar associations, chambers of commerce, and Lebanese civil society organizations possess extensive technical expertise that can strengthen procurement oversight without delaying implementation. Independent engineers can inspect delivered housing units against contractual specifications. Economists can analyze pricing trends. Professional associations can review compliance with engineering standards. Civil society organizations can monitor beneficiary satisfaction and identify implementation gaps. Accountability is strongest when Lebanese institutions themselves exercise oversight over Lebanese public spending.

Technology offers another powerful safeguard. A publicly accessible online dashboard should provide continuously updated information on procurement contracts, awarded suppliers, contract values, municipalities served, housing units delivered, beneficiary applications received, applications approved, installation progress, and total expenditures. Such platforms have become international best practice because they allow citizens, journalists, researchers, and parliamentarians to identify inconsistencies while projects are still underway rather than years after reconstruction has concluded. Open data discourages misconduct precisely because it makes concealment far more difficult.

Independent financial and performance audits should conclude every reconstruction program. Oversight should examine not only whether money was legally spent, but also whether procurement achieved value for money, whether local economic benefits materialized, whether domestic suppliers participated fairly, whether employment commitments were fulfilled, whether beneficiary selection remained equitable, and whether housing quality met contractual obligations. The objective of auditing should not simply be assigning blame after the fact but strengthening future emergency procurement systems through institutional learning.

Lebanon now has an opportunity to demonstrate that emergency procurement can simultaneously deliver rapid humanitarian relief, safeguard public resources, stimulate domestic production, create local employment, and strengthen public confidence in state institutions. Temporary housing should not become another episode remembered for controversy, opacity, or political favoritism. It should become an example of how reconstruction can rebuild both communities and institutions at the same time. The homes erected today will eventually be replaced by permanent reconstruction. The public trust earned through transparent governance, prudent procurement, and accountable institutions, however, can endure long after the temporary shelters have disappeared.


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