Hasbani: They spent $740M from SDR, can spend 8 on municipal vote

MP Ghassan Hasbani of the Lebanese Forces has said that the verbal clashes in Tuesday’s Joint Parliamentary Committees session were aimed at “deviating attention from the actual need for holding municipal elections, which some are seeking to postpone.”

“The session involved insulting remarks against MP Sami Gemayel and it seems that he has forgiven those who launched them based on contacts that took place in the evening,” Hasbani said in an interview on OTV.

“The government spent from the (IMF’s) Special Drawing Rights (SDR) on several files, so why doesn’t it finance the elections from them?” Hasbani added.

“They spent $740 million from the SDR and they can spend eight millions on the municipal elections,” the MP went on to say.

He added: “How does the government resort to extrabudgetary spending and refuses to finance the elections according to the same rule? And why are they seeking to force us into accepting a legislative session to justify their postponement of the elections?”