by Dana Halawi
BEIRUT, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese economists voiced their concerns on Thursday about international warnings with regard to the delay in approving the 2019 state budget and the non-sufficient measures taken by the government to curb the country's alarming public debt.
"There is a disappointment of the delays in approving the 2019 budget and the measures that have been included in the budget," Nassib Ghobril, head of the economic research department at Byblos Bank, told Xinhua.
Ghobril said the international community wanted to see a budget that includes real austerity measures.
The international community was keen on witnessing the appointment of a regulatory authority and a board of directors for state-run electricity company Electricite Du Liban to ensure transparency in its overall operations, he added.
Participants in CEDRE conference, which was held in Paris last year, were also expecting the 2019 budget to include a cut in the number of public sector employees and ghost employees.
"Moreover, the Lebanese finance minister announced a couple of months ago that there are around 93 inefficient public institutions that should be closed," Ghobril noted.
The expenditures in 2018 reached 17.8 billion U.S. dollars but the government has only introduced reforms that would slash spending by 300 to 400 million dollars, he explained.
"This is not considered an austerity budget. A real austerity budget would witness a cut by 2 to 3 billion dollars," he said.
The Lebanese parliament is currently discussing the 2019 state budget which is expected to be approved by mid-July.
Endorsing a state budget that slashes the deficit is among the measures the Lebanese government has pledged to take as part of the key financial and economic reforms recommended at CEDRE conference.
Makram Rabah, a political and economic analyst, said the government was not "transparent" about the 2019 budget.
"The figures adopted in the 2019 budget are fake," he said.
While Rabah expressed total pessimism, Ghobril did not paint a complete bleak picture of Lebanon's economy.
"It is true that the international community is not satisfied with current reforms but I do not think we will reach deterioration," Ghobril said.
Lebanon is currently the third most indebted country in the world after Japan and Greece with a public debt equivalent to 138.8 percent of GDP in 2018.
The government has been calling for more support from banks by subscribing to Treasury Bills at a non-market rate of one percent in a bid to reduce the cost of debt servicing which could reach 58.6 percent of the government's revenues by 2021 if the fiscal deficit maintained the same momentum, Moody's Investors Service said.
Lebanese banks refused this suggestion while arguing that they are already highly exposed to sovereign debt in Lebanon.
