Efforts to Adopt Draft Law on Exceptional Allocations after Eid

Efforts to put back a draft law on exceptional allocations for the budget worth LL8.9 trillion on the agenda of parliament will resume after Eid al-Adha holidays, ministerial and parliamentary sources said.

The sources told An Nahar daily on Friday that the draft law is necessary to pay the salaries and end-of-service payments of civil servants in several ministries and state institutions.

On Wednesday, parliament failed to approve the bill after the opposition demanded time to study it. The issue was also discussed by Speaker Nabih Berri, Premier Najib Miqati and the opposition al-Mustaqbal bloc leader MP Fouad Saniora.

An Nahar said Saniora informed both officials that a mechanism should be adopted in solving the spending that in the past four years used to be made through political consensus and not legislation.

If approved, the bill would legalize spending by the current government above 2005 levels, the last year the budget was approved by parliament.

Saniora has also asked Berri and Miqati to end accusations by the March 8 forces against his government and that of ex-PM Saad Hariri of violating the law and spending an additional 11 billion dollars between 2006 and 2009.

The finance ministry warned in a statement on Thursday against the rejection of the draft law, saying any failure by parliament to approve it would lead to an obstruction in its work and would hinder the task of other ministries.