Lebanese Ministry of Information
The Cabinet is poised to make a new batch of administrative appointments this week, but the session will be dominated by issues such as the economy, electricity, and the security situation in Arsal following Hezbollah’s offensive that defeated militants in the northeastern town’s outskirts, official sources said Tuesday.
The Cabinet is set to meet under President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace at 11 a.m. Thursday with 57 items on the agenda.
“The agenda includes appointments in the State Shura Council, the Central Inspection Department, two members in Ogero, [the state-owned telecoms company], and a new governor of the Bekaa region,” an official source told The Daily Star.
Last month, the Cabinet approved a wide range of diplomatic appointments and transfers, the biggest in seven years, to fill vacancies in key posts, namely Washington, New York, London, Moscow and Paris, in a move underlining Lebanon’s fresh diplomatic drive under Aoun’s mandate.
Prime Minister Saad Hariri is also expected to brief the Cabinet on the outcome of his weeklong official visit to Washington where he held talks with President Donald Trump and other senior officials focusing on combating terrorism, the Syrian refugee crisis and military aid to the Army in its fight against terrorism.
However, the source said important issues will be brought up by ministers from outside the agenda.
“Definitely, the economic situation in light of the raging row over the [public sector’s] salary scale bill and the new taxes and the electricity issue will be raised during the Cabinet session,” the source said.
Aoun has not yet signed the salary scale and tax hike bills, which Parliament endorsed last month.
Speaker Nabih Berri has signed the two laws and sent them to the Cabinet. Both laws need to be signed by Aoun and Hariri before they can be published in the Official Gazette and go into effect.
Aoun is coming under pressure from the private sector, the Association of Banks in Lebanon and the Kataeb Party to return the two laws to Parliament for further study.
Berri said in remarks published Tuesday that it’s the president’s “constitutional right” to return the salary scale and tax bills to Parliament. “It’s up to him [Aoun] to take the decision he deems fit,” Berri said.
The ABL and the Economic Committees, which group the leading business, banking and merchant associations in the country, have warned that the salary increases for civil servants and a string of taxes to finance them would deal a blow to the ailing economy, already burdened by more than $74 billion in public debts and endemic budget deficits.
Similarly, the security situation in Arsal will figure high during the Cabinet session following Hezbollah’s assault last week that drove out militants from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham – formerly known as the Nusra Front – from the town’s rugged outskirt, the source said.
The Lebanese Army is gearing up for a major battle against Daesh (ISIS) militants entrenched in a rugged mountainous terrain on the outskirts of the towns of Ras Baalbeck and Al-Qaa.
Aoun said “political support” from all officials has been secured for the Lebanese Army to carry out “pre-emptive strikes” to protect Lebanon against terrorism.
He spoke during a meeting at Baabda Palace with a delegation of senior Army officers led by Army commander Gen. Joseph Aoun who came to congratulate him on the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the Army.
Earlier in the day, speaking during a graduation ceremony for a new batch of Lebanese officer cadets at the Military Academy in Fayadieh, attended by Berri, Hariri and senior officials, Aoun said the Army is getting ready to achieve a new victory against militants after Jabhat Fatah al-Sham was dislodged from Arsal’s outskirts. “The last victory for Lebanon was the liberation of a dear area on the eastern border from the yoke of dark organizations,” Aoun said. “We are now looking forward to our armed forces that are ready to achieve a new victory and liberate the remaining areas that have been violated for years by terrorists. We all hope that these developments will accelerate the disclosure of the whereabouts of your comrades who were kidnapped three years ago and whose fate is still unknown.”
Nine Lebanese soldiers are still held captive by Daesh.
Amid a split within the Cabinet over his electricity reform plan, Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil is expected to brief the ministers on developments regarding the lease of power-generating barges aimed at improving power supply in the summer. Abi Khalil dismissed reports that a bid for two Turkish electricity barges had been invalidated.
The report, published in Al-Joumhouria newspaper, said the Central Inspection Bureau’s Tenders Department had rejected the offer made by a Turkish firm to lease electricity barges for Lebanon – a key part of Abi Khalil’s plan to fill Lebanon’s severe power shortage.
According to the report, a single bidder – Turkish company Karpowership – had applied to supply Lebanon electricity barges, and that this constitutes a violation of the law.
Meanwhile, the Future Movement’s parliamentary bloc praised the Army’s role in cracking down on terrorism.In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, chaired by former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, the bloc called on the government to do two things: deploy Lebanese troops in all areas from which militants withdraw in Lebanon’s eastern mountain range; and to use U.N. Resolution 1701 to ask the Security Council to agree on extending the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force, UNIFIL, to “back the Lebanese Army in protecting Lebanon’s eastern and northern borders similar to the successful experiment in the south.”
The bloc renewed its demand for the revival of an all-party national dialogue aimed at exploring a defense strategy that would confirm that the “Lebanese state is solely responsible for asserting its authority over all its territories.” “The defense strategy should be based on the respect of the Taif Accord and the Constitution, while asserting that the Lebanese government is the only authority in decision-making with regard to sovereignty and military decisions,” it said.
Several dialogue sessions held under former President Michel Sleiman with the participation of rival political parties had failed to reach agreement on a defense strategy designed to protect Lebanon against a possible Israeli attack. Sleiman had proposed a plan that would put Hezbollah’s arms under the command of the Lebanese Army.
But Hezbollah and its allies rejected the proposal, insisting on the controversial tripartite equation “the Army, the people and the resistance” as the best formula to defend Lebanon against any Israeli aggression.
