Heavy Agenda Awaiting Cabinet Meeting on Thursday

The cabinet will hold its first meeting on Thursday with major issues on its agenda that need to be resolved after nearly five months of political vacuum.

The agenda of the cabinet holds 71 articles. The government will begin with the necessary steps to resolve the administrative and economic issues.

Articles that are of critical importance are the appointment of Brigadier General Walid Salman as Lebanese Army chief-of-staff, Antoine Shqeir as the new director-general of the Presidential Palace, in addition to the renewal of the term of Central Bank governor Riyad Salameh.

Ministerial sources told An Nahar newspaper on Tuesday that the session will be the first step for the cabinet to launch a ministerial workshop, where meetings will be held afterwards with experts to resolve problems.

The sources said that there will be intensified sessions so that the cabinet completes the work on all the accumulated issues.

The cabinet’s agenda includes renewing the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and will also call on the Defense Ministry to recruit 200 military students for the Lebanese Army, the Directorate-General for State Security to recruit five officers for the directorate, the Interior Ministry to recruit cadets in the military academy for the ISF and six cadets to work for the Directorate General of General Security, and, call on the director-general for state security to recruit 300 officers for the directorate.

Meanwhile, the demarcation of the maritime borders with Israel will be discussed from outside the agenda.