Aoun Denies Report Claiming He's Unconvinced with Nahhas Plan

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Monday denied a media report claiming he was unconvinced with the wage hike decree proposed by Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas, who was nominated by him for the ministerial post.

“Every now and then, some media reports attribute stances to him (Aoun) or to FPM sources and they (media outlets) claim to read his intentions in order to come up with the conclusions they see fit,” Aoun’s press office said in a statement.

“General Aoun’s stances are very clear and they do not need any interpretation and he has never been one of those who say something and mean something else. If he agrees to something, it means that he agrees, and if he rejects something, he rejects it publicly and not under the table,” the office added.

“The two-faced policy … is not part of our behavior … and if it is the rule in these foul times, General Aoun and the FPM will remain the exception,” it stressed.

A report published Monday by pan-Arab daily al-Hayat claimed that Aoun had allegedly backed Nahhas’ decree to send a clear message to Premier Najib Miqati that he should take the opinion of the FPM and Change and Reform bloc before taking any decision.

“We are aware that the decision harms the economy and it is difficult to implement it … but we voted in favor of it with the sole aim of making the PM understand that we can break his decisions and that he should take our opinion into consideration,” al-Hayat’s ministerial sources quoted Aoun as saying.

The cabinet approved last month the wage hike proposal made by Nahhas. It calls for raising the minimum wage to LL868,000 from the current LL500,000 – a sum that includes a LL236,000 transportation allowance.

The decision also says that workers earning less than LL1.5 million should receive an 18 percent increase while salaries between LL1.5 million and LL2.5 million should receive an additional 10 percent on the second salary bracket. Wages above LL2.5 million will not earn an additional raise.

The raise is effective as of Dec. 1, 2011. But the Shura Council will have the final say on it.

The PM had agreed with the Economic Committees and the General Labor Confederation on fixing the minimum wage rate at LL675,000 without the transportation allowance. But despite the agreement between the three parties, Nahhas pushed his own proposal on the table of the cabinet which approved it after receiving the vote of 15 ministers.

Al-Hayat’s sources also said that Hizbullah ministers have admitted in conversations with other ministers that the labor minister’s suggestion cannot be implemented for economic reasons.

They also admitted that they voted in favor of it in the cabinet to please Aoun and consolidate their alliance with him after he complained that his ministers weren’t receiving enough backing in decisions taken by the government, the sources added.