​Below are the major highlights of the report: 

 

In the Ministry of Education and Higher Education 

The inspection conducted at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and public schools yielded the following observations:

    Kindergarten teachers account for 13% of the total posts at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. 51% of those teachers are indeed providing classes in pre-school while the remaining 49% perform other tasks. The irony is that around half of Kindergarten teachers (46%) are not specialized in early childhood education. 

    It was reported that there were kindergarten teachers in schools that did not even include this stage, while those schools offering pre-school classes lacked a sufficient number of specialized teachers. 

 

    There turned out to be a high student to teacher ratio of 12 to 1, noting that the average ratio should be 8 or 9 to 1 in each school.

 

    There were 62 impersonation cases (an exam malpractice whereby the candidate who is supposed to sit the exam is replaced by another) in the 2013 official Brevet examinations, 22 cases in the Life Sciences and Socio-economic Baccalaureates and 7 cases in the General Sciences Baccalaureate. 

 

    Regarding teaching on a contractual basis, the investigation revealed that the number of teaching hours in secondary school reached 600,000 in 2012-2013, costing roughly LBP 16 billion. Another 4.5 million hours were delivered on a contractual basis in basic education at roughly LBP 60 billion, which brings the grand total to LBP 76 billion, a figure that might even rise to LBP 100 billion were the hourly pay to be increased. 

 

Despite the financial violations and encroachments committed by the majority of public employees, the Central Inspection Board’s oversight was imperceptible. Only 33 disciplinary penalties were approved by the General Inspectorate of Finance, most of which were far from stringent as illustrated in Table 1.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tenders Authority is responsible for examining the entire file of each and every tender to verify that it is free of any deficiencies or inconsistencies. It provides financial credits for the deal, makes sure the terms of reference and all related documents are without whatever might skew the tender or tilt the balance in favor of a certain bidder and verifies that the works and supplies intended for procurement are not partitioned in order to evade the implementation of legal provisions without any valid technical or financial excuses. It also checks the proper estimation of amounts and prices. 

 

This vital function for the preservation of public funds and the prevention of laxity and squandering has been obscured after the establishment of independent councils and administrations and the resorting of some ministers to partitioning deals so as to spare them both the tendering process and the oversight.  This has resulted in a decline in the number and the value of the tenders organized by the Authority, which amounted in 2013 to roughly USD 843 million, down from USD 1.4 billion in 2012. The value of tenders in 2013 proved to be modest compared to total public deals conducted by state administrations  not to mention the fact that most of them  (74% in terms of value) were focused in only one ministry: the Ministry of Energy and Water as illustrated in Table 2. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Central Inspection’s staffing structure stipulates 328 posts for civil servants and 31 for daily/hourly workers. However, vacancy rates are as high as 51% as there are currently only 163 civil servants, 13 daily/hourly workers in addition to 23 hired on a contractual basis, six auxiliaries and one clearance worker.

 

In the general health, social and agricultural inspectorate, there are currently 11 vacant posts out of 25. This is a small staffing structure that needs to be expanded in proportion to the vast functions required of this inspectorate and the scope of the sectors falling under its scrutiny. 

 

Looking into the cases submitted to the Central Inspection and the recommendations drafted by the board regarding these cases, the following is worth mentioning:   

 

    A citizen filed a request to reconstruct his 200 m2 house, which was reportedly demolished during the July War of 2006. The Head of the Municipality approved the request and the Commission members agreed to inspect the buildings destroyed as a result of the hostility. 

 

    Upon careful scrutiny, it was discovered that the citizen in question did have a house on a public plot of land but a different one than the plot indicated in the request. It also turned out that his house was indeed demolished in the July War, but after rebuilding it he sold the house. He was intending to construct another house on another plot of land where the ruins of a demolished house had been found.

 

    The above happened because the officials in charge drew up the permits and the maps without bothering to make an actual field inspection to verify the facts. As a result of this offence, the Central Inspection decided to: 

    Deduct, as a disciplinary measure, three days of pay from the pay of the daily/hourly worker tasked with surveying 

    Deduct, as a disciplinary measure, three days of pay from the salary of the Head of Department

    Deduct, as a disciplinary measure, two days of pay from the salary of the Head of Department at the Qaimaqamiyah

    Remove the violations committed by the offending citizen 

 

    An employee on a contractual basis at the Ministry of Information was charged with circulating imitation currencies and was sentenced to hard labor that was commuted to a one year and three months in prison and a fine of LB 100,000, yet he continued to serve normally in his post as a result of the failure to inform the ministry about the sentence. 

 

    A citizen filed a request to delineate the boundaries of his plot of land to the SurveyDepartment but the responsible employee kept on procrastinating about the task, causing the citizen to re-file a new request for the same purpose. The Central Inspection decided, as a disciplinary measure, to postpone the promotion of the surveyor for 12 months and to deduct one day’s pay from the salary of the Head of the Survey Department.

 

    The Ministry of the Interior and Municipalities assigned to the Head of Department at the Qaimaqamiya of Matn several functions including the examination and organizing of all the tasks of the administrative and registrar departments, staff affairs, complaints, follow-ups and suggestions that needed processing as well as ratification of the signatures of heads of municipalities and mukhtars. However the Qaimaqam did not pass all these defined functions to the contract employee but instead distributed them to a number of employees in the Qaimaqamiya. In turn, the contract employee refused to hand the Qaimaqam the register of the signatures of the mukhtars in the concerned Qada’a, arguing that the transactions relating to the register fall within her own mandate. This has resulted in disputes between the two employees, affecting the proper handling of work.

 

Despite the paramount role of Lebanon’s Central Inspection in overseeing the performance of civil servants and securing the consistency of work within public administrations, this entity remains incapable of fulfilling its functions for several reasons, including, but not restricted to, political interference, high vacancy rates and delays in issuing rulings.