Parliament's Finance and Budget Committee approves additional appropriation to finance overseas voting

BEIRUT — Parliament’s Finance and Budget Committee on Monday approved both funding for passports and an additional appropriation to finance elections abroad, the committee’s head MP Ibrahim Kanaan said following a meeting of the committee.

Here’s what we know:

    • The parliamentary committee “approved securing the necessary funds for passports, which is a step forward,” MP Ibrahim Kanaan tweeted after the meeting. He added that tomorrow his committee “will start with the first session on the 2022 budget.”

    • Kanaan later told L’Orient Today that the committee had approved an additional appropriation of LL320 billion to finance elections abroad. He added in a statement that the interior and foreign ministers along with General Security can start working from the date of the law’s adoption in the legislative session.

    • Kanaan also said that on Tuesday the committee will study the 2022 budget plan “starting with the Finance Ministry and the government’s vision of the so-called budget process, and there will be a coordination meeting between [Kanaan] and the Finance Ministry this afternoon in preparation.”

    • Kanaan stressed that a budget will not pass if it is not “keen on people’s rights” explaining that “we cannot increase a tax on citizens whose income is limited or non-existent, and this matter is undisputed … it must be known to everyone that the issue of the materials contained in the budget will be subject to decisive control by the Finance and Budget Committee.”

    • The parliamentary committee headed by Kanaan met this morning in the presence of the finance, interior and foreign ministers to study and approve a draft law to open an additional exceptional appropriation in the 2022 budget to secure funding for expatriate voting.

    • The 2022 budget did not previously earmark funds needed to organize the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for May 15.