Initial estimates indicate that some 700,000 families will be supported by debit cards. The government needs over 556 million dollars to be able to apply that measure.

That economic support is part of a step to stop the current subsidy program that costs the State some six billion dollars a year.

One of the issues in doubt derives from who will finance those cash cards since the majority of the legislators rejected that it should come from the money of private savers or from the foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank (Banque du Liban).

‘…how the cards will be financed, how the costs will be distributed or the money will be reimbursed, remain on the shoulders of the government,’ noted the head of the MPs, Nabih Berri.

Since the end of 2019, Lebanon has been walking towards an unprecedented economic collapse that plunged over 55 percent of the population below the poverty line, estimated at 3.64 dollar a day, according to international agencies.

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