Cabinet Meets Sunday Evening and Monday in Bid to Finalize Budget
The Cabinet will hold a session at 9:30 pm Sunday and another on Monday morning in a bid to finalize the 2019 draft state budget.
"The government will try to finalize the main points pertaining to essential files such as the salaries of state employees and pensioners and other pending topics," ministerial sources told An-Nahar newspaper in remarks published Sunday.
"The government and its Prime Minister Saad Hariri are clearly determined to pass the budget as soon as possible although without rushing it," the sources added.
Sunday evening's session is expected to be lengthy according to An-Nahar.
In recent days, large segments of public sector employees have been protesting a decision to slash their benefits as part of an austerity package being studied by Cabinet for this year's budget.
Lebanon has vowed to slash public spending to unlock $11 billion worth of aid pledged by international donors during an April 2018 conference in Paris.
Last month, Hariri vowed to introduce "the most austere budget in Lebanon's history" to combat the country's bulging fiscal deficit, sparking fears among public sector employees that their salaries may be cut.
Lebanon is one of the world's most indebted countries, with public debt estimated at 141 percent of GDP in 2018, according to credit ratings agency Moody's.
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