Budget session adjourned over lack of quorum as public wage hike approved

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Friday adjourned a legislative session on the 2022 state budget to September 26 after the meeting lost its quorum due to a walkout by the opposition MPs.

The legislature had earlier approved a three-fold hike in the salaries of public sector employees, pensioners and the armed forces.

“We’re the ones who stripped the budget approval session of its quorum and what’s happening inside and outside parliament indicates that we’re living in two different worlds. Instead of seeking to return depositors’ money, they are working on smuggling it,” MP George Adwan of the Lebanese Forces bloc said.

“Amendments and increases to the figures were made in the last moment and we discussed the budget without final accounts. These are unacceptable things. We are ready to stay in parliament and sleep here on the condition that a budget with good numbers be passed, but this way of work does not respect the law,” Adwan lamented.

MP Michel Mouawad for his part said that “those who want to preserve people’s money must reject this state budget.”

Caretaker PM Najib Mikati meanwhile said that “all opinions will be taken into consideration during the preparation of the next budget.”

“The country needs rescuing, and this can only achieved if we work together and cooperate without populism and denial, because realism must prevail,” Mikati added.

“This is a corrective budget for a transitional period and it has an urgent nature. I’m ready to cooperate with everyone. Consider yourselves an executive government. Monitor, legislate and present the proposal that you want to rescue the country and we will continue working together in order to pass what’s needed,” Mikati went on to say.