If newly-appointed Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati successfully forms a government, its priorities will be to ensure better access to medicine, fuel, and electricity, until the parliamentary elections in 2022, according to Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.
These are the crises at hand that currently hampering Lebanon’s ability to function.
Speaking to Al-Akhbar, members of Mikati‘s team said that the premier would put forward an idea of using the $900 million Lebanon will receive from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to build two power plants in Deir Ammar and Al-Zahrani to cover Lebanon’s entire electricity needs.
He reportedly plans to study, with the IMF and economic experts, the best way to use the money allocated to Lebanon.
Mikati is also “counting on the promised international momentum, in order to ensure the implementation of the gas import agreement from Egypt, which will reduce the electricity bill and ensure the continuation of production,” Al-Akhbar reported.
So far, Mikati and President Michel Aoun have agreed on the need to expedite the government formation but have not yet delved into the specifics of the new Cabinet, which has been the major problem between Aoun and Saad Hariri.
Aoun‘s son-in-law, MP Gebran Bassil, whose parliamentary bloc “Strong Lebanon” did not vote for Mikati, has announced that his bloc and FPM party do not wish to partake in the new government, and have no requests regarding it.
Mikati was appointed as PM-designate after former premier Saad Hariri quit at failing for 9 months to come to an agreement with Aoun on the Cabinet formation.
According to Hariri, the failure was due to the naming of the Christian ministers and the FPM’s refusal to grant a vote of confidence.
