Salam Warns of Severe Circumstances if 'Disaster' Spirals out of Control
Prime Minister Tammam Salam has described the country's waste crisis as a “national disaster,” warning that street protests could spiral out of control and lead to detrimental effects.
“We are facing a national disaster that is much more dangerous than some (people) imagine,” Salam told As Safir daily in remarks published on Monday.
He warned that intensified street protests “would have very harmful circumstances.”
Salam said that the country can no longer tolerate “intense crises because the situation in the region is different and the status-quo has changed.”
The PM told As Safir, however, that a solution to the crisis was looming in the horizon.
Salam headed on Sunday night a meeting that was attended by Ministers Nouhad al-Mashnouq, Mohammed al-Mashnouq, Akram Shehayyeb and Wael Abou Faour and MP Alaeddine Terro at the Grand Serail.
The emergency meeting came when protesters blocked the highway that links Beirut with the South in the coastal town of Jiyeh after news broke out that the authorities were mulling to send the capital's waste to Iqlim al-Kharroub.
The protesters stopped several trucks carrying trash and prevented them from entering the region. A day earlier activists held a protest near the Grand Serail in downtown Beirut calling on Salam and the environment minister to resign.
The waste management crisis erupted on July 17 following the closure of the Naameh landfill south of Beirut which since 1997 has been receiving trash from the capital and Mount Lebanon.
The landfill was meant to operate for only a few years until a comprehensive solution was devised. But the government has so far failed to resolve the issue.
It is set to discuss the matter during a session on Tuesday.
G.K.
D.A.
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