Cabinet to Kick Off Appointments in State Posts Next Week
The cabinet is exerting efforts to resolve the appointments of top civil servants in state posts by filling the vacant positions on different stages, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday.
“We will not appoint (the civil servants) in one package… We will appoint them on stages,” a minister told the daily.
Sources close to Prime Minister Najib Miqati said that the cabinet will start tackling the issue as of the upcoming week, as the government will appoint a batch during each session.
“This requires consensus (among the cabinet members) and putting forward the public interest on all the other private and narrow interests,” the sources said.
Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour told As Safir “after we finished the 2012 state budget, we hope that the diplomatic appointments will be on the way.”
Disputes among the cabinet members has led to continuously postponing the diplomatic and civil services appointments and also led to the suspension of the government session for one month earlier this year.
According to sources, the cabinet withdrew discussions on the appointment of the Higher Customs Council during its session on Wednesday as the draft law included the name of the head of the council, who is a Shiite, and two members (Sunni and Maronite), but failed to mention who will be appointed in the post of the Customs direct-general, which is reserved for Maronites.
Ministerial sources said that withdrawing the article from the cabinet’s agenda is due to Bkirki’s objection on not including the name of who will become the new Customs DG.
Concerning the appointment of personnel in the vacant posts in the oil authority, As Safir newspaper reported that President Michel Suleiman, Miqati and Energy Minister Jebran Bassil agreed with the members of the cabinet to swiftly resolve it to issue the tenders.
“We have adopted the mechanism to choose from the suggested names, by selecting three names for every post,” Bassil told the daily.
There are currently 18 candidates for 6 posts.
Bassil described the candidates as “excellent and highly efficient.”
Lebanon has been slow to exploit its maritime resources compared with other eastern Mediterranean countries. Israel, Cyprus and Turkey are all much more advanced in drilling for oil and gas.
In March, the cabinet approved the appointment of the six members.
Lebanon and Israel are bickering over a zone that consists of about 854 square kilometers and suspected energy reserves there could generate billions of dollars.
The Israeli map conflicts with Lebanon's proposed maritime border.
Lebanon argues its map is in line with an armistice accord drawn up in 1949, an agreement which is not contested by Israel.
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://cdn.naharnet.com/stories/en/46455 |