Riham Alkousaa
Updated Sun, January 5, 2025
FILE PHOTO: Workers move money to Syrian central bank in Damascus
By Riham Alkousaa
DAMASCUS (Reuters) -Syria's finance minister said on Sunday the government would hike salaries for many public sector employees by 400% next month after completing an administrative restructuring of ministries to boost efficiency and accountability.
The increase, estimated to cost 1.65 trillion Syrian pounds, or about $127 million at current rates, will be financed by existing state resources plus a combination of regional aid, new investments, and efforts to unfreeze Syrian assets held abroad.
"(This is) the first step towards an emergency solution to the economic reality in the country," Mohammed Abazeed, the finance minister in Syria's caretaker government, told Reuters, adding that this month's wages for public sector staff would be paid out this week.
These measures are part of a broader strategy by Syria's new caretaker government to stabilize the country's economy following 13 years of conflict and sanctions.
Salaries of Syria's public sector employees under toppled President Bashar al-Assad's regime were around $25 a month, putting them below the poverty line, along with the majority of the country's population, Abazeed said.
The hike would follow a comprehensive evaluation of up to 1.3 million registered public sector employees to remove fictitious employees from the payroll and would affect those with sufficient expertise, academic qualifications, and the necessary skills for reconstruction.
Syria's state treasury is facing liquidity challenges emerging from a war. The majority of money available in the central bank is Syrian currency, which has lost much of its value. However, the new government was promised assistance from regional and Arab countries, the minister said.
"The launch of investments in the country in the near future will also benefit the state treasury and allow us to finance this salary increase," he said, adding the central bank currently has sufficient funds to finance the next few months.
The government expects to retrieve up to $400 million in frozen Syrian assets abroad, which could co-finance the initial government expenses.
Syria's caretaker government is also discussing exempting taxpayers, as much as possible, from penalties and interest and working on overhauling the tax system within the next three months to achieve tax justice for all taxpayers, with a first draft expected within four months.
"By the end of this year, we expect having a well-designed tax system that takes the interests of all taxpayers into account," he added.
(Reporting by Riham AlkousaaEditing by Mark Potter and Sharon Singleton)
‘The tyrant is gone and the nightmare is done’: Syrian exiles hope for a brighter future
Erum Salam
Sun, January 5, 2025 at 4:00 AM MST·5 min read
THE GUARDIAN
Torn posters show the late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad and his son, the recently ousted Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, on 14 December 2024.Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP
Shortly after the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Jihad Abdo, a well-known actor in the Arab world, left his home in Damascus.
After being quoted criticizing government corruption in a Los Angeles Times article, he had been targeted by a string of threatening phone messages from callers claiming to be senior officers in the Syrian army. Leaving Syria would also mean leaving his younger brother and ageing parents. But amid the mounting intimidation, Abdo felt he had no choice.
“The air had become suffocating in Damascus with the recurring threats,” Abdo, 62, said. “The country I loved turned into a prison where stating the truth was treason and hope was kind of like a crime.”
Related: Control, censorship and ‘penalties’: inside the Assad regime’s propaganda arm
His wife, Fadia Afashe, had been pleading with her husband to join her in safety in the US, where she was on a Fulbright scholarship. Abdo believed his celebrity status might lend him some protection – only to realize that even more prominent figures were being caught up in Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on dissent.
Eventually, he fled to join Afashe in Los Angeles, describing the decision to leave as one of the hardest he had ever had to make.
In California, the actor, whose credits include 40 Syrian films and more than 1,000 episodes of television, was forced to start over again, working as a pizza delivery driver and changing his name to more palatable “Jay”.
“I lost almost everything – parents, career, friends, memory and even my cat. I was torn apart between hope and failure, between a bright future and dark destiny,” he said.
Like many Syrians, Abdo and Afashe never thought they would see the end of the Assad regime. But after a lightning campaign earlier this month, rebel forces overthrew the Syrian leader, who, after 13 years of torturing, imprisoning and displacing millions of his own people, fled to Russia.
“[I’m] free in a way I never dared to dream of,” said Abdo. “Not in those days when the walls of my homeland whispered fear and betrayal I could believe the tyrant is gone and the nightmare is done.”
After more than a decade in exile, the couple are, like many other Syrians abroad, contemplating the possibility of returning home – whatever home looks like now.
Abdo’s mother and father died in 2016 and 2018, respectively. He hasn’t seen his brother, a cellist, in more than a decade, apart from phone calls over a lousy connection. A friend, fellow entertainer and puppeteer Zaki Kordillo, was imprisoned during Assad’s regime alongside his son and brother-in-law. Abdo said he still has no idea if they are alive.
Abdo and Afashe both managed to build new lives in the US. Abdo’s acting career eventually got back on track and he has acted alongside Nicole Kidman, in Queen of the Desert, and Tom Hanks, in A Hologram for the King.
Afashe, a women’s rights activist, is now a US citizen, but she said the “scars of displacement” remain: “I find myself torn between two countries – one where I’ve built a life, and the other that will always hold my roots
Related: ‘It was like I was reborn’: Sednaya prison’s former inmates adapt to a new Syria
“The idea that I might soon embrace my parents once more, that I could walk the streets of my homeland, feels almost unreal,” she added.
Abdo expressed gratitude for the sacrifice of the young people who dared to take on Assad, and cautious optimism over the Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
Sharaa, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group, was once a member of al-Qaida in Iraq, but has struck a conciliatory tone, calling for Syrian unity, the protection of minorities and the disbanding of rebel factions. The US government last week lifted the $10m bounty on his head.
Syria is a diverse country, with a broad spectrum of ethnic groups, religions and languages, and Abdo echoed calls for the country’s new leaders to grant representation for all of these people.
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“I demand seeing women making and taking decisions, and Syrians from all different ethnicities and religious differences and sects being seated together brainstorming a bright, bright future for this country.”
For members of the Syrian diaspora around the world, the fall of the Assad regime means bridging identities and reuniting with family, some of whom may have never met before.
Nadia El-Hillal, a dentist in Phoenix, Arizona, was born and raised in the US, but spent every summer as a child with her grandparents in Damascus and Daraa.
Those visits were a formative part of her childhood, but she still remembers the ever-present fear of denunciation by government informers or members of the secret police.
“Anytime anything was brought up about the government, it was very much, ‘hush hush’. Like, you can’t really comment. You couldn’t openly speak out against the government,” said El-Hillal, 37.
Now, she says, there has been a significant shift, and for the first time El-Hillal recently learned her uncles were once imprisoned.
“It’s almost like the lid of a pressure pot has been removed, and people can breathe and can talk about the things that people have gone through,” she said.
Now with children of her own, El-Hillal dreams of taking them to Syria.
“We’re already talking about it. We don’t know if this summer is going to be too soon,” she said. “Syria is a great place to just really immerse yourself in the Arabic language. That’s a goal for us and for our kids.”
She added: “With all the things happening in a Gaza, and just our focus on constant negative news, it was the first time in a long time that we felt just like a spark of hope.”
'Protect our people': Armed Syrian volunteers watch over Damascus
Maher Al Mounes
Mon, January 6, 2025
AFP
A member of a local neighbourhood watch guards his neighbourhood in Damascus (ANWAR AMRO) (ANWAR AMRO/AFP/AFP)
Every night, Damascus residents stand guard outside shops and homes armed with light weapons often supplied by Syria's new rulers, eager to fill the security vacuum that followed the recent takeover.
After Islamist-led rebels ousted former president Bashar al-Assad in early December, thousands of soldiers, policemen and other security officials deserted their posts, leaving the door open to petty theft, looting and other crimes.
The new Syrian authorities now face the mammoth challenge of rebuilding state institutions shaped by the Assad family's five-decade rule, including the army and security apparatuses that have all but collapsed.
In the meantime, Damascenes have jumped into action.
In the Old City, Fadi Raslan, 42, was among dozens of people cautiously watching the streets, his finger on the trigger of his gun.
"We have women and elderly people at home. We are trying to protect our people with this volunteer-based initiative," he told AFP.
"Syria needs us right now, we must stand together."
- 'Protect our neighbourhoods' -
Local committees have taken over some of the deserted checkpoints, with the authorities' approval.
Hussam Yahya, 49, and his friends have been taking turns guarding their neighbourhood, Shughur, inspecting vehicles.
"We came out to protect our neighbourhoods, shops and public property as volunteers, without any compensation," he said.
He said the new authorities, led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, have backed their initiative, providing light arms and training.
Authorities also provided them with special "local committee" cards, valid for a year.
Police chief Ahmad Lattouf said the committees had been set up to patrol neighbourhoods to prevent crime until the police could take over.
"There aren't enough police officers at the moment, but training is ongoing to increase our numbers," he said.
The Damascus committees begin their neighbourhood watches at 22:00 (19:00 GMT) every night and end them at 06:00 (03:00 GMT) the next morning.
Further north, in the cities of Aleppo and Homs, ordinary residents have also taken up weapons to guard their districts with support from authorities, residents told AFP.
The official page of the Damascus countryside area has published photos on Telegram showing young men it said were "volunteering" to protect their town and villages "under the supervision of the Military Operations Department and in coordination with General Security".
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It also said others were volunteering as traffic police.
- 'Rebuild our country' -
A handful of police officers affiliated with the Salvation Government of the Idlib region, the rebel bastion controlled by HTS before Assad's fall, have also been deployed in Damascus.
Traffic policemen have been called from Idlib to help, while HTS gunmen are everywhere in the capital, especially in front of government buildings including the presidential palace and police headquarters.
The authorities have also begun allowing Syrians to apply to the police academy to fill its depleted ranks.
Syria's new rulers have called on conscripts and soldiers to surrender their weapons at dedicated centres.
Since rising to power, HTS and its allies have launched security sweeps in major cities including Homs and Aleppo with the stated goal of rooting out "remnants of Assad's militias".
In the capital's busy Bab Touma neighbourhood, four local watchmen were checking people's IDs and inspecting cars entering the district.
Fuad Farha said he founded the local committee that he now heads after offering his help to "establish security" alongside the HTS-affiliated security forces.
"We underwent a quick training, mainly teaching us how to assemble weapons and take them apart and to use rifles," he said.
Residents told AFP that the committees had been effective against burglars and thieves.
"We all need to bear responsibility for our neighbourhood, our streets and our country," Farha said.
"Only this way will we be able to rebuild our country."
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