Public Employees Salaries at Stake as AMAL, Mustqbal Row Widens
Negotiations between AMAL and al-Mustaqbal movements over the country's financial crisis failed to reach a breakthrough as the two parties insisted on their stance despite a mediation led by the Progressive Socialist Party.
Speaker Nabih Berri defended on Saturday his adviser, Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, stressing that he insists on the endorsement of a spending decree at the parliament to pay the salaries of public employees.
“I will not allow any measure that violates the law... My stance is final,” Berri said in comments published in al-Akhbar newspaper.
The newspaper said that the rift between al-Mustaqbal and AMAL isn't only financial, considering it “an attempt to settle an old political rift between the March 8 and 14 coalitions.”
Minister Khalil expressed fear recently that civil servants would not be paid their salaries at the end of the month if the cabinet and parliament failed to approve extra-budgetary spending.
Berri and Khalil reject to violate the law on spending like previous cabinets did.
However, al-Mustaqbal movement, which is affiliated to the March 14 alliance, is insisting that the only solution to the spending row is the government authorization according to the General Accounting Law.
Parliament should pass draft-laws allowing the government to approve treasury loans. But lawmakers have been boycotting legislative sessions over the vacuum at the presidency.
According to al-Joumhouria newspaper, a heated debate erupted on Friday between AMAL and al-Mustaqbal despite efforts exerted by PSP chief MP Walid Jumblat through his political aide Health Minister Wael Abou Faour to end the dispute.
The daily said that Abou Faour contacted Khalil and head of former premier Saad Hariri's office Nader Hariri to revive dialogue between them although it reached a dead end on Thursday.
Jumblat revealed recently in excerpts to local newspapers that a meeting was lately held between Khalil and Nader Hariri.
Al-Liwaa newspaper said that Khalil rejected a proposal by Abou Faour to hold a meeting in presence of Berri, head of the Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Fouad Saniora.
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