The sad saga of Casino du Liban is a textbook case of corruption in Lebanon, and one that should be used to expose similar cases of rampant waste and fraud at many other institutions that are run or supervised by the state.

Employees threatened with dismissal from the casino have been in the media spotlight recently, but what really deserves attention is the outrageous behavior of politicians and officials who have used the establishment for years as their personal fiefdom.

It’s a small country, meaning that it’s difficult to hide forever the outrageous tales of fake employment. Certain casino employees receive their jobs courtesy of politicians and officials, and many receive their lucrative salaries in exchange for doing absolutely nothing. The only time that some of these “employees” set foot in the casino is to receive their salaries, while some who have emigrated continue to receive their checks abroad.

In some cases, the salaries that these people receive are higher than those of top state officials, while the public is hearing about severance packages that might amount to several hundred thousand dollars, for people who didn’t put in a day’s work to begin with.

The only path to correcting the situation is through radical reform, the kind that covers both the casino and the many other public or quasi-public sector bodies where these kinds of abuses have been tolerated for far too long.

The sordid mess at the casino is only the tip of the iceberg. As easy as it is for Lebanese to come up with similar stories at other institutions, it’s just as difficult to come up with politicians who are willing to tackle these horror stories.