“I swear by Almighty God that I am searching through waste for plastic and iron so that I can secure my family’s sustenance.” Words uttered by the heartbreaking sergeant of the Tripoli Fire Brigade, Muhammad Kasha, shook the Lebanese public opinion, during a sit-in carried out by the regiment’s members to demand the payment of their salaries and entitlements.
Kasha has two children, one of whom is nine months old. She needs monthly, as he told Al-Hurra, “1,300,000 pounds for milk and diapers, while his salary is 1,800,000 pounds, and the remaining amount is not enough for the price of fuel to move to and from my work center, and above that Our salaries and entitlements have been stopped, so how can I manage my affairs, should I steal so that my daughters do not starve? I certainly cannot do that.”
After the salary of the first sergeant in the fire brigade was equivalent to 1,200 dollars before the economic crisis, it is now equivalent to 43 dollars, with the exchange rate of the dollar on the black market crossing the threshold of 41,000 pounds.
Ghosa says, “Two weeks ago, my seven-year-old daughter asked me for a shawarma sandwich. I might not buy it for her because I did not have the price for it. How can a father bear his inability to fulfill even a simple request for his little girl?”
The collapse of the value of his scavenging salary prompted him to collect plastic and iron to sell them and obtain a simple income that meets even a little of the needs of his family, and as he says: “I sell a kilo of iron for 10,000 Lebanese pounds, meaning whatever I collect, it is not possible to rely on what I earn from it, from here I have to work in porter whenever I get the chance.”
For the third year in a row, the Lebanese are living in the shadow of an unprecedented financial collapse, which the World Bank considered deliberate, and one of the three worst financial collapses in the modern era, as the Lebanese pound lost more than 95 percent of its value once morest the US dollar, which led to a widening The extent of poverty has reached the limits of 80 percent.
A few days ago, the Tripoli Fire Brigade confirmed its inability to respond to the call in the event of any fire, justifying this in a statement by “the lack of fuel material in the Federation of Al-Fayhaa Municipalities to which it belongs administratively and financially, and the inability to pay the dues of workers in the union, especially the members of the fire brigade from Salaries, social assistance, transportation allowance, etc., as well as not receiving any hospital for all workers in the federation due to non-payment of hospital dues.
And on Wednesday, the fire brigade confirmed handing over the keys to the firefighting vehicles to the president of the union and closing the union until further notice, “until we reach our demands and let each person take responsibility from his position.” And he confirmed in a statement, “We previously issued a statement explaining our demands and pains, and we communicated the cry to everyone involved in the matter. But we have received nothing but promises and love that does not come to us with a loaf of bread to satisfy our hunger, so yesterday we took an escalating step in the city and closed the roads, and here we record our reproach to the city’s deputies who did not show solidarity with our rightful demands.
And he addressed the people by saying: “We did not leave the city and did not hesitate to carry out our duty even in the darkest circumstances, from the July war to the rounds of fighting, then the explosions and the revolution, even the individual problems that resulted in the burning of property and our machinery testifies, as the traces of bullets are still there.”
‘The situation is tragic’
The members of the fire brigade have not received, as First Sergeant Muhammad Beiruti told Al-Hurra, social assistance since July, and “this month we did not even receive our salary and transportation allowance, and on top of this we are not covered healthily by the Federation of Al-Fayhaa Municipalities, so the firefighter became unprepared.” To sacrifice himself, because any work accident he will be exposed to will not be received by any hospital, or it will fall on him to ensure the treatment of himself.
As for Kasah, he mentions how he had to knock on the doors of the associations in order to secure an amount of 27 million pounds in exchange for the hospitalization bill for his daughter, who had an acute infection following her birth, as her health condition required her to be placed in resuscitation for 12 days. Hospitals refuse to receive us or we have to pay the bill, without having a single pound in our pockets.”
Two weeks ago, doctors discovered that the wife of Staff Sergeant Khalil Al-Ashqar had breast cancer, and instead of focusing on how to heal his wife and follow all that the doctors required to overcome her malignant disease, his greatest concern, he says, is how to secure funds for her treatment, “before she takes For one pill, I paid 800 dollars between examinations and x-rays, while the doctor’s check-up is one million and 600 thousand pounds, which means that it is almost equal to my salary.
Al-Ashqar’s wife needs an operation that costs 3,500 dollars, of which he does not have a single dollar, and he tells Al-Hurra website, “The situation is very difficult. The gas bottle is empty and I cannot fill it. Even the price of a bundle of bread for my three children I am unable to secure. The generator (electricity) subscription is limited to one. An amp costs thirty dollars a month, and I think throughout the month regarding where I will get this amount from, and my house rent allowance is $50, and on top of that, its owner told me that with the beginning of the new year it will be $100.”
The tragic situation in Lebanon has reached the point where “more than 60 percent of families are forced to buy food by accumulating unpaid bills or by borrowing and borrowing, and 30 percent of Lebanon’s children sleep with empty stomachs, because they do not receive a sufficient number of meals,” While 77 percent of families do not have enough food or money to buy food,” according to what was previously confirmed by a UNICEF report.
Lebanon recorded the second highest nominal food price inflation rate around the world during the first eight months of 2022, according to a report issued by the World Bank (198 percent annual change in the food price inflation index), and the United Nations had previously blamed the Lebanese state and its bank for Central responsibility “for the violations of human rights, including the unnecessary impoverishment of the population, which resulted from this man-made crisis.”
Throwing responsibilities
13 years ago, Beiruti joined the Tripoli Fire Brigade, in order to serve his city and its people, without expecting, as he says, “that my colleagues, who number regarding 40 firefighters, will become rams for the incinerator in contrast to the mayors who join the Federation of Fayhaa Municipalities, as they refuse to pay dues.” And we pay the price.” He adds, “For my part, I do not rely on my salary from working in the fire brigade, but I have colleagues whose conditions are very miserable. Stones cry and unfortunately do not move the conscience of officials.”
The fire brigade has reached the point of no return, as confirmed in its statement, explaining, “We have not taken our dues for months, and if we took some of them, it would be with great difficulty, until the union owed more than 20 million for each firefighter and employee. Our children are hungry, and most of us are threatened with eviction from their homes due to non-payment of rents, except for Taking our children out of classes for not paying the accumulated installments. The problems resulting from the presidency of the municipality of Beddawi, the presidency of the Union, and the conflicts between the municipalities are not our fault.”
Four municipalities fall under the banner of the Federation of Al-Fayhaa Municipalities, namely, the municipalities of Tripoli, Qalamoun, Beddawi and Al-Mina. Employees’ salaries are being paid, and this uprising took place.”
He explains to the “Al-Hurra” website that “the federation has more than thirty billion pounds owed by the municipality of Tripoli and more than nine billion pounds owed by the municipality of El-Mina.”
As for whether the municipalities’ failure to pay the dues due to them to the federation was caused by Ghamrawi’s presidency, while it was customary for him to be headed by the mayor of Tripoli, or his deputy, then the mayor of El-Mina, he answered, “No, it has been since I headed the federation for more than three years.”
Regarding the solution, Ghamrawi says, “The quick solution lies in the municipalities transferring the money owed by them to the federation, especially the municipality of Tripoli, which is the largest municipality that owns billions, as well as the municipality of El-Mina. As for the municipality of Beddawi, which I head, it transferred the dues owed by it for three years, and the payments that are transferred must be increased.” from the Independent Municipal Fund.
For his part, the mayor of Tripoli, Ahmed Qamar al-Din, responded to Ghamrawi’s words by saying: “All the municipalities affiliated with the union do not pay the debts incurred by them, and not only the municipality of Tripoli, which is considered one of the most municipalities in terms of paying obligations, and let Ghamrawi please and pay the dues of the municipality he heads.” Before correcting others, yes, the union has funds from the municipality of Tripoli since 2013, but there are municipalities that have not been paid since 2006, and it also refuses to provide us with statements of the funds in its possession.
Qamar al-Din stresses that “a financial payment has been secured for the union,” denying that his municipality’s failure to pay the dues owed to it was due to disagreements with the president of the federation. The Independent Municipal Fund instead of 25 billion pounds.
All the financial increases promised by the Tripoli Fire Brigade are still, according to Al-Ashqar, a dead letter, stressing that they are supposed to provide us with “at a minimum, health coverage, so that we can work, as how will we face the fire when we are not hospitalized, and how can we save others and preserve their property, and there is no fuel in the firefighting and ambulance vehicles, and let everyone know that we are honing diesel from associations and donors.”
“What is happening is very shameful,” says Al-Ashqar. “After 12 years of serving my country and risking my life, and following I was helping everyone who needed me, I became the one who asked for help from others.” The officials do not care regarding our pain or the pain of the rest of the Lebanese people.
As for sweeping him, he concludes by asking: “Even the small salary that I and my colleagues were satisfied with is not paid to us, so what is required of us for our children to die of hunger before our eyes? Is this how firefighters who risk themselves to save people’s lives and preserve their property are treated?”