ANSD : Lebanon: Overdue municipal funds to be released soon

MON 25 - 11 - 2024

Date: Apr 22, 2019
Source: The Daily Star

Lebanon: Overdue municipal funds to be released soon

BEIRUT: Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil Sunday said the state’s overdue payments to municipalities from 2017 will be released soon despite the difficult financial situation, during an annual meeting of municipal councils in south Lebanon.

Municipalities across the country have not received their allocations from the Independent Municipal Fund for 2017 and 2018, leading municipal workers across the country to protest on multiple occasions. The funding for 2019 is not yet due.

According to the state-run National News Agency, Khalil said that the funding for 2017 would be released by the first half of May, adding that Prime Minister Saad Hariri promised to finalize the release of the funds after the Easter holidays.

On Feb. 27, Interior Minister Raya El Hassan signed a decree to distribute the Independent Municipal Fund allocations for 2017, and sent it to the Finance Ministry for endorsement. A source at the Finance Ministry previously told The Daily Star that Khalil signed the decree to release the funds in March, but that it still needed to be signed by President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

Khalil said Sunday that work was underway to secure the funds as soon as possible, and chalked up delays to “real complications in our financial situation.”

The minister added that Lebanon’s economic and financial crises could be overcome by political stability, will and a clear vision for reform, along with “measures that do not [affect] people’s livelihood.”

Khalil had previously said the draft budget, which includes fiscal and economic reforms recommended at last year’s CEDRE conference, would not touch the salaries and wages of the poor and middle class, or the 2017 salary hikes to civil servants and government schoolteachers.

Hariri has been striving to secure political consensus over austerity measures the government plans to adopt in the 2019 budget in order to generate revenues, cut the budget deficit and bolster the flagging economy - reeling under $85 billion in public debt, an endemic budget deficit and slow growth.

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