Kanaan Calls on Saniora to Present Accounting Records of 2006-2010 Governments
Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan noted on Tuesday that the problem on government spending does not lie in the spending itself, but in the fact that parliament is being undermined.
He also reiterated his bloc’s demand that Mustaqbal bloc MP Fouad Saniora present the government’s accounting records from 2006 until 2010.
He added during a press conference that the governments of former Prime Ministers Saniora and Saad Hariri presented draft laws on the state budget after the constitutional deadline.
Furthermore, he remarked that the 2005 state budget was submitted a year and a month after the constitutional deadline.
“The delay in presenting a state budget allowed them to spend funds and later request parliament to approve this spending,” Kanaan explained.
In addition, the MP slammed the March 14 camp’s claims that the delay in the approval of a state budget under the Saniora and Hariri governments is attributed to the closure of parliament between December 2006 and May 2008 over disputes between the March 8 and 14 forces.
“The problem lies in the fact that they have refused to acknowledge the presence of a mechanism that stipulates how funds should be spent,” declared the Change and Reform MP.
“Some sides’ demand that the constitution be applied is being interpreted by some sides as an attempt to create strife,” he added.
“I am not making political statements, but I am recounting facts and legal decisions that have been issued by the Audit Bureau,” he continued.
“We cannot fabricate legal matters. The law must be respected,” he stressed.
“Is it acceptable that we have reached the point of political blackmail?” asked Kanaan.
He added that the bill that would legalize the $5.9 billion spending was referred to parliament and these funds were spent as treasury loans.
“Our problem with Saniora lies in the fact that his government did not receive approval to spend funds,” he noted.
The draft law on the spending of the $11 billion is unacceptable, he said.
The March 14 opposition and mainly al-Mustaqbal bloc MPs are protesting the March 8 camp’s proposal of a bill that would legalize the $5.9 billion spending made by Premier Najib Miqati’s cabinet in 2011.
The lawmakers are conditioning the approval of the bill to a comprehensive settlement to the current spending and the $11 billion spent by the Saniora and Hariri governments.
Lebanon has been without a state budget since 2005.
The March 8 forces, mainly the Change and Reform bloc of MP Michel Aoun, are demanding records on how the $11 billion was spent.
However, Saniora, who heads al-Mustaqbal bloc, stresses the spending was made to cover the expenses of increase in wages of civil servants, subsidize electricite du Liban and pay the interest on the national debt and compensations to the victims of the Israeli aggression on Lebanon in 2006.
He said that the total of additional spending between 2006 and 2009 amounted to $11 billion. While the 2010 spending totaled $5 billion, and the amount spent in 2011 totaled $6 billion.
Saniora’s effort to sum them up is aimed at pushing parliament at finding a comprehensive solution to the extra-budgetary spending.
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