Kataeb leader Samy Gemayel on Tuesday noted that a cover-up to the fiasco in government performance is being implemented to distract the people with delusive matters.

In remarks published in Al-Joumhouria newspaper, Gemayel stressed that those who did not endure the Mountain tragedy are unaware of its value and risk, in reference to the shooting that rattled Chouf and killed two of Minister Saleh Al-Gharib's bodyguards.

“We’ve lived it and hundreds of our martyrs fell in the Mountain, therefore, we acknowledge the importance of the Chouf Reconciliation and the imperative need to safeguard it,” Gemayel affirmed, calling for fortifying it, preserving and protecting it.

Gemayel noted that the incident paved way for non-existent sectarian tensions mounting fears in the hearts of the residents.

“A dangerous course has led to this incident and we must stop it because it came as a cover-up to the ruling authority's bad performance,” he noted.

“The incident was the only way to conceal this failure by instigating prejudices and activating sectarian discords so that the people overlook their concerns and daily problems. Every faction bears responsibility to the incident,” he continued.

“This blatant carelessness towards people’s suffering is our primary problem in this government. The second one is relinquishing the state's decision-making power and the third and most fundamental one is that no captain is running this nation,” Gemayel criticized.

“A democracy cannot be established amid the spread of illegal arms. The adopted electoral law based on proportionality was supposed to bring diversity to all sects. Why didn’t it impinge on the Shiite community? Was that a coincidence?” Gemayel deplored.

“The lack of diversity in the Shiite community is an unhealthy indicator, revealing that Hezbollah is using arms to alter internal political balances,” he blasted.

“The State budget file resembles someone who is trying to ‘extinguish a fire in his house with a bottle of water’,” he joked.

Gemayel criticized the snowball effect as the country’s $90 billion debt and the $6.5 billion annual deficit of 2018 keeps increasing by 7% every year.

“We won’t eventually be able to pay employees’ salaries or pay the interest on debt,” he said.

“The State has borrowed huge sums of money with very high interest rates. We are a few months away from an economic breakdown”

“I am not sure if we will survive until the end of this year and I wonder how we held up so far as figures speak the truth. The deficit was estimated by 8.5% in 2018 but numbers have shown that the deficit has reached 11.5%. Instead of working on reducing it from the current figure in 2019, the government has relied on the 8.5% visual estimation previously adopted in the last budget,” he explained.

Gemayel cast doubt on the CEDRE reforms’ expectations as they create investments and projects whose returns on the public finances take time.

“CEDRE is not enough to save the economic situation,” Gemayel warned.