To budget or not to budget

Dear reader,

This week, for once, we’re going to step back from the Hamas-Israel war content, and we’re going to focus on… the budget.

For the first time since the mid-2000s, Lebanese Parliament has met, (kind of) on time, to discuss the 2024 draft budget.

But that’s the only good news.

The new budget is facing condemnation by civil society as well as members of Parliament who deride its lack of vision and its likely uneven impact on low- to medium-earners.

So, nothing new is under the radar here.

But for you, dear readers, we wrote a series of articles and explainers detailing how the budget should be voted on, how it was voted on (or not) during the past 30 years and why having a budget is important. After all, we’ve lived many years without a budget, so we might think we don’t need one — but we do.

We wish you happy reading, and, if you live in Lebanon, we hope you stay warm and dry this weekend.

L’Orient Today

In case you missed them, here are our must-read stories of the week: