Proposition of law instituting a pension system in Lebanon

This proposition of law has been presented by a group of MP’s from the “Block of Change and Reform” in June 2006.

The text integrates the previous formulations on the same subject, since Hoss’s Government in 2000, going through the Ministerial Commissions set up by the various Hariri’s Governments under the chairmanship of Issam Fares, up to Karame’s Government who, after substantial amendments to the project prepared by the Commissions, sent a bill of law to the parliament.

The main differences with the previous versions relate to four ideas:

1. Generalise the pension system to all the categories of the active resident population and, on a voluntary basis, to the Lebanese living and working abroad ;
2. Make effective the protection of the workers’ savings and the redistributive commitments of the state built in the system, notably against the risks, that are very real, of seizure by the state who wants to place its debt titles with captive investors and reduce its deficits through the accumulation of arrears ;
3. Separate at an institutional level the pension system from the other components of Social Security: health insurance, family allocations, risks of death, work accidents, etc. because the accumulation of reserves in the pension system encourages laxity and looting in the management of the mutualisable risks, whether from the side of the state or the administration or the various suppliers of services ;
4. make the new system immediately applicable by organizing the cut-off in the law and by implementing a direction body to manage the transition, enjoying the full powers of the Board, without waiting for application regulations that might never come or that might wait for the usual sectarian and clientelistic arrangements.

This text might create a breach in political landscape because it organises a balanced arbitrage between the interests in place. It also sets the reforms and the dialogue with the international organisations on a clear and tangible base.