Some 37,000 employees in Lebanon's state institutions and administrations were hired in a manner that skirted employment laws, according to the results of a sweeping parliamentary investigation announced Thursday. The number, announced by MP Ibrahim Kanaan, chair of Parliament's Finance and Budget Committee, represents over a third of Lebanon's entire public sector.
The committee's investigation, which began some eight months ago and saw a number of ministers brought in for questioning, looked into two major forms of illegal hiring. Firstly, it sought to investigate violations to Article 21 of the 2017 Salary Scale Law, which instituted a hiring freeze upon its ratification by Parliament on Aug. 21 of that year.
The remaining 32,009 employees were illegally hired before the freeze went into effect.
Here, there are some discrepancies with the Finance and Budget Committee's figures, which indicate the total number of employees in state administrations and institutions is 88,725 -- some 6,000 employees short of Attieh's figures.
Still, Hamdan said the court would look to hold to account both those who had been employed illegally and those who had illegally employed them.
This includes the names of 435 employees suspected of being illegally hired at state-run internet provider Ogero, he said.
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