March 14 Hints it Scored Victory in Electricity Bill
The March 14-led opposition hinted on Thursday to have scored a victory against MP Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc after a meeting of joint parliamentary committees approved an electricity draft law with some amendments rejected by Aoun.
March 14 MP Jean Oghassabian told Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) that the committees approved the cabinet’s initial draft law as called for the opposition and not as Energy Minister Jebran Bassil and his father-in-law Aoun wanted.
MP Ammar Houri told al-Liwaa daily that parliament should adopt the draft law referred to it from the committees. “It is strange that we as an opposition are calling for the adoption of the decision of the cabinet while the pro-cabinet parties are evading it.”
The dispute is not with the government itself but with Bassil who is rejecting to have transparency in the $1.2 billion project proposed by him to generate 700 megawatts of electricity, he said.
Houri also accused Bassil of rejecting to form the Electricity Regulatory Authority and a board of directors for Electricite du Liban.
The two amendments introduced to the bill force Bassil to begin forming the ERA and EDL’s new board of directors as soon as parliament endorses the bill.
Opposition sources told As Safir daily that the approval of the cabinet’s decision by the parliamentary committees with the two amendments was an adoption of the majority of amendments that the March 14 lawmakers were seeking to introduce to the electricity bill.
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