Extra-Budgetary Spending Plan Fails to See Light
The cabinet is not likely to approve a draft-law on extra-budgetary spending in 2006-2010 this week after a ministerial committee tasked with studying the issue failed to agree on the plan proposed by Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi.
The committee met under Premier Najib Miqati at the Grand Serail on Monday. But its members were incapable of overcoming their differences on the details of the spending made by the governments of ex-Premiers Fouad Saniora and Saad Hariri.
The committee wasn’t either able to achieve an agreement on the $5.9 billion extra-budgetary spending of 2012.
But its members agreed to discuss the controversial issues during another meeting that will likely be held on Thursday.
Safadi stressed that the $5.9 billion spending is linked to the billions spent by the previous governments. He also said that the committee didn’t settle the issue despite all the details he provided on the spending of the Saniora and Hariri cabinets.
Asked by An Nahar daily whether there was a political decision to resolve the two issues, committee member Minister Mohammed Fneish said: “Of course no one has decided to obstruct it. The political decision has been taken but the accounts should be put on paper legally.”
Ministerial sources also said that the plan on the 2006-2010 spending drafted by Safadi has reached an advanced stage. But in their remarks to As Safir, they ruled out its adoption by the cabinet that is set to convene on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, member of the parliamentary finance and budget committee MP Ibrahim Kanaan reiterated that the government shouldn’t settle the $11 billion spending made between 2006 and 2009 without referring the accounts to the Audit Bureau.
Another $5 billion has been spent by the national unity cabinet of Hariri in 2010 but the main controversy lies on the $11 billion which the Change and Reform bloc of MP Michel Aoun, of which Kanaan is a member, says was riddled with embezzlement.
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