ANSD : Lebanon: Cabinet OKs raft of items in final session

SAT 20 - 4 - 2024

Date: May 22, 2018
Source: The Daily Star

Lebanon: Cabinet OKs raft of items in final session

_{Ghinwa Obeid & Joseph Haboush| The Daily Star}
BEIRUT: A marathon six-hour Cabinet session ended Monday with the approval of a series of items, and marked the conclusion of the term of Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s government. Starting at around noon, discussions of a 59-item agenda ended just after 6 p.m. at Cabinet’s final session before the body entered caretaker status at midnight. According to a statement from the presidency, the Cabinet approved a minimum wage and salary increase for employees of public hospitals and state institutions that administer them.

The decision addressed multiple protests staged by public hospital employees in recent months that have demanded a wage hike in accordance with the salary scale law that was passed last year.

Employees of several public hospitals last week temporarily closed their facilities to all patients to protest the delay in the law’s implementation.

Dozens of hospital employees gathered in Baabda before Cabinet ministers arrived for Monday’s session, to call for the pay raise.

Cabinet appointed commissioners for the National Human Rights Institute, after Parliament passed a law establishing the body in October 2016. Under the law, the NHRI is to include a committee to investigate torture allegations.

Cabinet also renewed the term for head of the Public Corporation for Housing Rony Lahoud for another four years; extended the work of the disaster risk management unit; approved the production of 1 million biometric passports; and agreed to provide municipalities around the Abay-Ain Drafil landfill with financial incentives dating back to 2013.

Outgoing Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil’s request to assign a number of nonresident ambassadors in a number of countries was approved. A Baabda Palace source told The Daily Star that Bassil and outgoing Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil were in disagreement over the appointments, although it wasn’t clear what the core of the disagreement was.

Cabinet also agreed to build Lebanese embassies in Norway and Denmark and establish consulates in Dusseldorf in Germany and Miami in the United States.

Ministers agreed to form a committee to follow up on discussions over broadcasting the World Cup on the state-run Tele Liban for free.

The committee will be formed of the youth and sports, telecommunications and information ministers.

Speaking to reporters after the session, outgoing Information Minister Melhem Riachi said that a meeting would be held by the Telecoms Ministry Tuesday to follow up on the issue.

Cabinet also approved a draft law for developmental projects in Akkar, Baalbeck, Hermel, Beirut’s southern suburbs and other areas, worth a total of $225 million; and assigned the Lebanese Army, the Higher Relief Committee and Regie Libanaise Des Tabacs Et Tombacs to survey climate change-related damage to tobacco farms in south Lebanon. Separately, Khalil was delegated to issue Eurobonds aimed at paying compensation to certain property owners.

In addition, Cabinet agreed to extend contracts for air navigation experts, but did not approve the demands of the Lebanese Air Traffic Controllers Association, another source close to Baabda Palace said.

Last Wednesday, LebATCA held a one-hour strike demanding benefits and the implementation of last year’s salary scale. It also called on the government to hire more air traffic controllers and experts, and requested the approval of necessary funds to finance important projects.

Controllers canceled a strike planned for Monday after soon-to-be-caretaker-Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Public Works and Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos assured them their demands would be discussed at the Cabinet session.

Speaking ahead of the session, Fenianos said he was optimistic that the air traffic controllers’ issue would be resolved. “We will present to Cabinet today the matter of the air traffic controllers, who announced the cancellation of their strike due to [its effects on the] airport,” Fenianos said ahead of the session, according to local media.

Speaking at the beginning of Monday’s meeting, President Michel Aoun addressed officials, thanking them for all that was achieved during their term.

“I hope that ministers during the caretaker phase will act responsibly and will exclusively concentrate on running the administrative affairs and streamline citizen’s formalities,” Aoun said. The president also tasked Hariri with drafting a report of the outgoing government’s accomplishments, “to be presented to the citizens.”

Aoun calls on caretaker Cabinet to keep working

BEIRUT: President Michel Aoun Tuesday called on Lebanon’s Cabinet to continue working – in its capacity as a caretaker body – until a new Cabinet can be formed.

The Cabinet held its final session Monday before it passed into a caretaker role as Parliament’s term expired, at midnight.

Parliament’s four-year term, which was extended three times since 2013 over security concerns, expired overnight Monday, meaning the government is now considered resigned.

Aoun will call for binding consultations with parliamentary blocs to elicit their preferences regarding the formation of the new government.

“President Aoun has asked the [Cabinet] to continue to conduct business with the beginning of the [new] Parliament, and to consider the [Cabinet] resigned pending the formation of a new government,” a tweet from the presidency’s official Twitter account read Tuesday.

A statement from the presidency’s office, also released Tuesday morning, noted that Aoun thanked Prime Minister Saad Hariri and all of the ministers for their work.

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