Lebanon’s blessing is its creative and flexible private sector, while its curse is without a doubt its wasteful and failed public sector. That, in summary, is Lebanon’s economic situation today, perhaps much like that of many Third World economies.

In truth, that description surprises no one. One feature of the global economy is that the private sector is the engine of growth and the creator of wealth rather than the public sector, while acknowledging the latter’s importance in creating social safety nets, fighting poverty, ensuring equal opportunities and protecting the environment.

Good governance requires the rationalization of government spending, making government departments and public facilities smaller and diverting public spending from routine administrative areas toward investments, particularly in infrastructure.

But the performance of the caretaker Lebanese government is running contrary to the rules of good governance: the fiscal deficit is growing at the expense of the private sector’s growth and capacity. Indeed, according to a report by the Barclays Capital foundation issued in December 2013, the fiscal deficit for 2013 is expected to be 10.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP), which is a significant and alarming increase over the past years (8.9% in 2012 and 6.1% in 2011).