Why Lebanon’s drivers can’t be legal
Corruption has closed down an entire department of state
It is quite common, amid Lebanon’s current chaos, for cars without number-plates to breeze through the traffic and be waved through checkpoints with nobody batting an eyelid. Last year nearly all the employees of the country’s car-registration office were arrested on charges of corruption. Some 60 workers there are said to remain behind bars. The interior ministry admits that since October the entire department, known as the Nafaa after the area of Beirut where it is located, has been shut down. So the number of numberless cars cruising the roads has been rising.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Why Lebanon’s drivers can’t be legal”
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