The National Federation of Labor Unions and Employees in Lebanon (FENASOL) stated in a communiqué: "We have not seen since the financial and economic collapse such impudence and a brutal, mafia-like, and humiliating manner directed at an entire population. The ferocity of the fuel cartel's control over gasoline and diesel, and their full solidarity among themselves—between fuel station owners who have closed their stations and distribution and import companies—by lifting support from the people, and the directive from caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to the Minister of Energy yesterday to cancel the price schedule based on the Sayrafa platform and to calculate the price schedule based on the black market dollar rate, to avoid financial losses for station owners and distribution companies. It is absurd and laughable that the fuel cartel is purchasing dollars from the Sayrafa platform; where is the loss in the price drop of gasoline and diesel when the price schedule is based on the Sayrafa price of 38,000 lira per dollar?"
The statement questioned the Prime Minister and the officials, asking the import and distribution companies and fuel station owners: "Aren't you ashamed of yourselves? Haven't you had enough today?" It addressed Mikati: "Can you tell us, there was 110,000,000 dollars purchased from the Sayrafa platform yesterday, where did it go and to whom? You know that the major speculators are three companies in Beirut controlled by the Central Bank, as the judiciary knows them. If the reason is known, the wonder ceases. This is why the Central Bank issued a circular to sell dollars without a specified ceiling under the pretext of combating smuggling and speculation. On one hand, it prints Lebanese currency without any specified ceiling, and on the other hand, it purchases dollars from the Sayrafa platform. Where does the Governor of the Central Bank get the dollars from, isn't it from the depositors' funds?"
The statement further added: "If you care about fuel station owners and have ordered your Minister of Energy, it would have been better if you cared about the dollar rate for the state's electricity bill, which has risen with the increase of the Sayrafa dollar price to 38,000 lira, meaning it will reach 45,000 lira as the Electricity of Lebanon will charge the bill according to the Sayrafa rate + 20 percent, which means that the citizen will pay the electricity bill based on a dollar rate higher than the current black market dollar rate. Why don’t you take measures to address the blatant thefts from citizens’ pockets? And what about the medicine cartel that has once again cut off medicines and baby formula from citizens amid the rise in dollar prices and has again returned to supply them to pharmacies after most of the medicine and baby formula prices have been raised? Here we ask you, is this your gift to the Lebanese people during the joyful holidays and the end of the year?"
It continued: "In light of all that is happening and the practices of the corrupt political class and its cartels against the nation and the people, resulting in organized waste and looting, along with blatant thefts that have pushed 80 percent of the population into extreme poverty and hunger, and 25 percent living on two dollars a day, all of this without any moral or humanitarian deterrent from a system that has bankrupted the state for 30 years and looted funds transferred abroad." It concluded: "The federation renews its call to confront the government of the International Monetary Fund and its president, and to resist it by all legal means, including bringing it down through street protests and declaring comprehensive civil disobedience throughout the nation. Until when will we remain silent about hunger, poverty, humiliation, and death at the doors of hospitals due to the greed of the hospital cartel, in light of the absence of any health guarantee for citizens amid a total collapse of state institutions?"
