Dire battle to survive amid cash crunch
UNEMPLOYED and unable to support his family of four, Hussein Hamadeh, 51, now spends his days trying to find help to weather a protracted economic crisis that some Lebanese fear has become the new norm.
Hamadeh lost his stable job in carpentry and developed an illness that requires expensive medication.
He used to fish and sell his catch for extra income, but would-be buyers in his shanty neighbourhood on the coast by Beirut’s airport now cannot afford fish or buy it because power cuts mean they can’t store it in a fridge.
Like many Lebanese, Hamadeh’s family teeter on the edge of deprivation but never quite fall off the cliff, leading to an exhausting, anxiety-inducing life. “I have a very pessimistic view. There is no future,” Hamadeh said, as his daughters, aged 9 and 13, studied in light filtering through a window at their unlit one-bedroom home.
The formerly middle-income country’s financial system imploded in 2019, leading to a currency crash that the UN says has dragged four out of five residents into poverty.
A Gallup poll last December, found nearly three in four people in Lebanon had stress “a lot of the day” – a new high in its 16 years measuring trends in the country. Some 63% said they would leave the country if they could. Aid keeps Hamadeh’s family afloat. About $200 come from relatives and a government social assistance programme, and neighbours help when they can. His children’s school expenses are mostly covered by a charity
and a portion of his medicine is subsidised by the state.
The crisis, by the admission of senior politicians, was the result of decades of profligate spending and corruption that led the financial system, a main lender to the state, to collapse.
Economists say it will deepen as long as politicians delay passing reforms agreed with the International Monetary Fund in April to unlock billions of dollars in aid.
Basic state services have crumbled, subsidies on almost all goods have been removed and tens of thousands of Lebanese have left the country seeking jobs abroad in the biggest emigration wave since the 1975-90 civil war.
The government says it remains committed to implementing reforms that would pave the way for an IMF
deal. Public pressure that peaked during 2019 protests and after the August 2020 Beirut port blast has largely subsided, and parties that have ruled for decades still took most seats in May’s parliamentary polls.
Mohammad Chamseddine, a policy and research specialist at Beirut-based consultancy Information International, said many households had adjusted to the situation, living on aid and the few hundred dollars their relatives working abroad send back home each month. Lebanon had long relied on remittances, but the flow has increased as some 200 000 people had emigrated since 2019. The World Food Programme alone supports a third of the country’s 6 million population with food and cash aid; hospitals and schooling.