ANSD : Cabinet to start work on reform plans, appointments

SUN 24 - 11 - 2024

Date: Feb 19, 2019
Source: The Daily Star

Cabinet to start work on reform plans, appointments

_{Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star}
BEIRUT: The new Cabinet is set to hold its first session this week to lay the groundwork for the launch of a series of key economic reforms and appointments to fill key vacant administrative and military posts, official sources said Sunday.

“The first Cabinet session will lay the foundation for the government to begin implementing its program on whose basis it won Parliament’s confidence,” a source close to Prime Minister Saad Hariri told The Daily Star.

The Cabinet session, set to be chaired by President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace Thursday, “will witness a distribution of the tasks to be assigned to ministers and relevant bodies and pave the way for appointments to fill vacant posts in the administration according to the government’s program,” the source said.

Among key vacant posts to be filled is that of the Cabinet secretary-general after the current Secretary-General Fouad Fleifel reached the retirement age this month.

There are two candidates tipped to replace Fleifel: Mount Lebanon Governor Judge Mohammad Makkawi or Judge Mahmoud Makieh.

Other important appointments involve filling four vacant posts in the country’s six-member Military Council, including that of the Army chief of staff, which is allotted to a Druze officer. The council is headed by Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun.

“Priority will be given to military appointments,” an official source told The Daily Star. The source said the government will have to appoint a new state prosecutor to replace the current Prosecutor Judge Samir Hammoud, whose term expires in May. The source added that there would be vacant posts soon in the presidency’s directorate general due to retirement.

Major appointments will also involve the state-run Council for Development and Reconstruction, which implements and supervises government projects, a political source said. The CDR’s new appointments gain special significance given the fact that the council, which reports to the Cabinet, is expected to play a major role in the implementation of investment and infrastructure projects pledged by the Lebanese government at the CEDRE conference held in Paris last year, the source added.

Ahead of the Cabinet session, Hariri is set to chair an enlarged meeting at the Grand Serail Monday of representatives of Arab, European and international funds and financial organizations that had pledged to help Lebanon at the CEDRE conference.

Among other things, the meeting would discuss the economic and financial reforms the government had pledged at the CEDRE conference to implement as a means of shoring up the country’s ailing economy, burdened by $85 billion in public debt, an endemic budget deficit and slow growth. “After gaining a vote of confidence with a big majority from Parliament, the path appears to be smoothed for the government to begin delivering on its reform promises and tackling a host of economic and financial issues,” the official source said.

Speaker Nabih Berri said that the government, after gaining Parliament’s confidence, should act to launch the “awaited workshop to put the country back on the track of [economic] revitalization and compensate for the time lost for the Lebanese in the past period.”

“The government has no excuse not to make fast achievements on a host of vital files that concern the people. The quick road to this matter is the immediate implementation of laws in force and laws that have been stalled for many years, including a number of laws that contribute toward the rise of the country and remedying the administrative situation in some sectors that are suffering from vacancies, especially the electricity sector,” Berri told visitors at his Ain al-Tineh residence.

If the government implemented these laws, Berri said, it would be giving “a serious signal” about its determination to resolve the country’s problems. “But if these laws continue to be stalled, this would further complicate the situation,” he added.

Noting that “corruption” was the word most used by MPs in their speeches during the discussion of the policy statement, Berri said: “This means that corruption constitutes a worrying concern for everyone. There should be a quick and effective action to uproot it. This is the duty of everyone, above all the government.”

Warning that the economic situation is “very difficult,” Berri said: “It’s no secret that everyone is worried and feel the danger. Hence, what is required first and last is the protection and fortification of internal stability.”

After three days of heated debates by lawmakers during the discussion of the new government’s policy statement, centering mostly on the need to fight corruption, and harsh verbal exchanges between Hezbollah and Kataeb Party MPs, Hariri’s 30-member national unity Cabinet Friday won the confidence of 111 legislators who voted in favor, while six voted against of the 128-member Parliament. Eleven MPs were absent.

Ahead of the vote, Hariri, responding to MPs’ speeches, promised the Lebanese to begin work to remedy the country’s worsening economic and social situation.

“We promise you that all our work will be to achieve economic revitalization so you may have a dignified life in your country,” Hariri said. Declaring that the Lebanese are fed up of outbidding by politicians, Hariri, who formed his Cabinet on Jan. 31, ending an eight-month political deadlock, said: “They want work, and my decision and that of the government is to work then work then work.”

One of the major drains on the state’s coffers is the ailing electricity sector. Setting an ambitious goal, Hariri said that 2019 would be the year in which the solution would finally be found.

In the government’s policy statement, Hariri reaffirmed Lebanon’s commitment to key economic and financial reforms seen as crucial to moving forward on accessing over $11 billion in grants and soft loans that were pledged by international donors at the CEDRE conference.

As part of the necessary requested reforms, the policy statement stipulates that Lebanon will reduce the deficit by 1 percent annually over the next five years.

To boost revenues and reduce state spending, the state will begin by cutting down on subsidies to the state-run Electricite du Liban estimated at $2 billion annually, according to the draft statement.

_{A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on February 18, 2019, on page 1.}

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