While people in Lebanon fight over subsidized goods in supermarkets, some groups are putting their hands on these precious items to smuggle and sell them abroad.
The head of the Syndicate of Supermarket Owners in Lebanon, Nabil Fahd, shed light on this issue in a statement to LBCI on Tuesday.
“There are gangs pulling subsidized goods from supermarkets in order to smuggle them out of the country,” he said.
Since their appearance in the local market, subsidized products from Lebanon have been found on shelves in various countries around the world, including Sweden, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Turkey, and Kuwait.
The smuggling of these goods, on which many Lebanese have grown dependent to survive the worsening crisis, has sparked outrage in the country and prompted calls for the protection of subsidized products and the monitoring of their distribution.
On Monday, Fahd commented on the recent closure of several supermarkets in Lebnaon due to the continued devaluation of the Lebanese pound.
He suggested in a statement to the National News Agency the distribution of subsidized products through the Ministry of Social Affairs.
His suggestion, he said, aims at “avoiding these problems and [ensuring] that the supermarkets are not placed in a confrontation with the citizen.”
