Qazzi Slams Bou Saab over Lebanese University Decree

Labor Minister Sejaan Qazzi held Education Minister Elias Bou Saab responsible for the cabinet's failure to approve the decree on the Lebanese University and accused him of harming the consensus agreement reached among its members.

“I hold Minister Bou Saab responsible for the failure. He is also harming the concept of consensus in the cabinet,” Qazzi told several local dailies published on Friday.

Qazzi, a Kataeb party official, also accused the education minister, who had proposed the decree, of linking the education file with politics and sectarianism.

The cabinet members reached an agreement on Thursday on the full-time employment of LU's contract workers but failed to strike a deal on the appointment of deans over differences between Kataeb and the Progressive Socialist Party on their sects.

Cabinet decrees require the approval of its 24 ministers in accordance with an agreement reached last month in light of the vacuum at Baabda Palace.

“Bou Saab mismanaged the (LU) file academically and politically. He deceived the teachers by claiming that he was capable of giving them their rights and by deluding politicians that he could guarantee their demands,” said Qazzi.

The education minister “has been working on guaranteeing the interests and shares of the Free Patriotic Movement,” he added.

Qazzi justified Kataeb's dispute with the PSP and the failure to approve the decree by saying that his party would have not asked for Kataeb-affiliated deans if the issue was academic and not political.

“But we do have the right to suggest two names after the choice became political,” he said.