Berri Goes Ahead with March 14 Proposal on Extra-Budgetary Spending

Speaker Nabih Berri announced on Wednesday that he agreed with Premier Najib Miqati and Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi for the government to prepare a detailed draft-law on an $11 billion spending made between 2006 and 2009 similar to a $5.9 billion bill referred to parliament by the cabinet.

“I decided to go ahead with the proposal of (al-Mustaqbal bloc leader) Fouad Saniora and the March 14 team to correlate the two draft laws,” Berri said in remarks to An Nahar and As Safir dailies.

If Safadi completes the draft-law before a March 15 parliamentary session, then “I will put it on the agenda along with the $5.9 billion bill so that they are discussed and adopted together,” he said.

“But if there was a delay, then the session will be held to approve several other draft-laws and projects,” the speaker told the newspapers.

The March 8 and 14 forces engaged in a dispute on the extra-budgetary spending after the $5.9 billion bill on the spending made by Premier Najib Miqati’s cabinet in 2011 was put on the parliament’s agenda for approval.

The March 14 opposition lawmakers boycotted legislative sessions twice conditioning their approval of the bill to a comprehensive solution that would also legalize the $11 billion spent by the governments of ex-PMs Saniora and Saad Hariri in 2006-2009 and a $5 billion spending made by Hariri’s national unity cabinet in 2010.

“I gave up my proposal for the formation of a joint parliamentary-ministerial committee” to resolve the dispute, Berri told the dailies. But lamented that the opposition lost a “golden opportunity to turn the page of the past.”

He also said that the March 14 MPs could have attended the legislative session on Monday to discuss other draft-laws on its agenda “so that they would not harm the citizens’ interests.”

“They could have withdrawn from the session only after the start of discussions on the $5.9 billion bill,” he added.