Cabinet Meets Thursday to Tackle State Security Agency

The government is scheduled to convene next week with some 120 articles on its agenda, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

The regular cabinet session, set for Thursday, is also expected to tackle the issue of the state security agency.

Contacts are ongoing in order to resolve the dispute over the matter, ministerial sources told the daily.

No progress has been achieved so far however, they revealed.

Earlier in March, the Kataeb Party’s three representatives in the cabinet and Tourism Minister Michel Pharaon warned that they would take action if the government fails to resolve the “marginalization” of the general-directorate of state security.

The directorate had sent a bill to the cabinet on March 20, 2014 asking for the creation of a six-member leadership authority under which the director-general, Maj. Gen. George Qaraa, a Catholic, would have the casting vote.

But the former secretary general of the cabinet, Suhail Bouji, paralyzed the plan by saying that the approval of the bill requires a draft-law to be adopted by the parliament unlike a decision made by the Shura Council.

Media reports speculated that Bouji’s move likely came as a result of his friendship with the deputy director-general, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Tufaili.