A Finance and Budget Committee meeting was held on Wednesday, August 10th, under the chairmanship of Member of Parliament Ibrahim Kanaan. Present were Caretaker Minister of Finance, Youssef Al-Khalil, and Caretaker Minister of Economy Amin Salam.
The present were gathered to follow up on the draft law aimed at requesting the approval of the World Bank over a wheat loan agreement of $150 million.
The Finance Committee has approved the amendments to the law, making the loan possible, except for two articles that the Ministry of Economy gave until tomorrow to be approved in session.
Kanaan said the Finance Committee is working on not raising taxes, “It has nothing to do with the customs dollar that will be decided between the cabinet and the Central Bank, which the President has rejected because it is unfair to raise it from 1.500 LL to 26.000 LL.”
The Finance and Budget Committee President also noted that the committee is searching for a way to meet some of the demands from the public workers’ open strike:
“The Finance Committee is currently examining a scenario put forward by a number of MPs regarding public sector salaries, which are still calculated according to the 1.500 LL exchange rate, to seek a balance between revenues and expenditures as much as possible,” he said.
In relation to an earlier meeting, Kanaan said that “the consecutive governments’ violations of the constitution in budget laws continue since the nineties, and it is high time those malpractices, for which the Lebanese people have paid dearly, stopped.”
Related: The Open Strike In Lebanon’s Public Sector Costs The Country $400,000 Per Day
