March 8 and14 Task Berri to Resolve Controversial Spending as Both Sides Hold onto their Stances

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed Tuesday that a controversial extra-budgetary spending would be resolved through the adoption of a $5.9 billion spending bill first to pave way for a solution to $11 billion spent between 2006 and 2009.

In remarks to As Safir daily, Berri said that parliament should “first legalize the $5.9 billion, which the opposition March 14 forces had initially agreed to, so that the $11 billion problem could be resolved.”

The speaker made his remark after he chaired a meeting of parliament’s bureau and heads and rapporteurs of parliamentary committees in Ain el-Tineh on Monday following a dispute that erupted last week when the March 14 opposition and mainly al-Mustaqbal bloc MPs stormed out of parliament to protest the proposal of the $5.9 billion bill that would legalize spending made by Premier Najib Miqati’s cabinet in 2011.

The lawmakers have conditioned the approval of the bill to a comprehensive settlement to the current spending and the $11 billion spent from outside the budget by the governments of former Premiers Fouad Saniora and Saad Hariri between 2006 and 2009 and a $5 billion spending made by Hariri’s cabinet in 2010.

Lebanon has been without a state budget since 2005.

Saniora reiterated in remarks to As Safir that “the issue is very clear and (the solution) should be comprehensive.”

But sources close to Berri said that “the March 14 team in general and al-Mustaqbal bloc in particular should adopt a positive stance towards the $5.9 billion bill” so that a solution could be found to the $11 billion.

Parliamentary sources also told An Nahar daily that the Speaker reiterated his proposal to form a joint legislative and ministerial committee that would study ways to resolve the dispute ahead of a parliamentary session scheduled to be held on March 5.

Although the sources described Monday’s meeting in Ain el-Tineh as “calm,” they said the March 14 and March 8 lawmakers failed to agree on the formation of the committee over the insistence of the Change and Reform bloc of MP Michel Aoun to send the file of the $11 billion to the Audit Bureau first and second for parliament to approve the $5.9 billion bill on March 5.

The bloc claims the spending made by the Saniora and Hariri governments was filled with embezzlement.

In remarks to An Nahar, Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan, who is also the head of the parliamentary finance and budget committee, vowed to ask Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi to send the records on how the $11 billion was spent to the Audit Bureau and the committee after the minister claimed during a cabinet session that he had all the documents.

Despite the differences between the two sides, the conferees approved to give Berri the right to “find the appropriate solution,” deputy Speaker Farid Makari told the same newspaper.