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CABINET SESSION

After budgeting legislative elections, Mikati calls on ministers to avoid outbidding each other

After budgeting legislative elections, Mikati calls on ministers to avoid outbidding each other

Acting Information Minister Abbas Halabi addresses the press after Tuesday's cabinet session. (Credit: Lebanese presidency Twitter)

BEIRUT – The Mikati cabinet has allocated LL320 billion for parliamentary elections, the office of the Lebanese president tweeted Tuesday. The 2018 elections cost Lebanon around $54 million, acting Information Minister Abbas Halabi quoted Prime Minister Najib Mikati as saying in a Tuesday evening press conference.

Here’s what we know:

    • After the cabinet session held in the presidential palace in Baabda the acting information minister told the press that Mikati called on ministers to avoid outbidding each other “especially since the country is 90 days away from the elections and we have to work together” to help the country.

    • He added that the energy minister explained the most prominent items in the electricity plan aimed at improving energy production, noting that this file will be studied in the next session.

    • Energy Minister Walid Fayad was asked to draw up a plan for a law regulating the electricity sector, to study the possibility of reviewing the electrical tariff in parallel with increased feeding hours and to develop a plan to install electricity meters.

    • “It is not possible to increase the electricity tariff in light of the ongoing power cuts, so the energy minister was tasked to reconsider the tariff after increasing electricity supply hours,” Halabi added.

    • Asked whether there is confidence in the electricity plan, Halabi said: “No trust until we see the light.”

    • Fayad responded, saying that in order to see the light, the international community “have asked us to approve the electricity plan, and without approving the plan we will not see the light.”

   • During the cabinet session, President Michel Aoun’s office tweeted that Mikati had asked the interior minister to prepare a study, at Aoun's request, to create a “mega center,” to be discussed in the next session, to facilitate voting operations in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

BEIRUT – The Mikati cabinet has allocated LL320 billion for parliamentary elections, the office of the Lebanese president tweeted Tuesday. The 2018 elections cost Lebanon around $54 million, acting Information Minister Abbas Halabi quoted Prime Minister Najib Mikati as saying in a Tuesday evening press conference.Here’s what we know:    • After the cabinet session held in the...