Parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee meets, considering the draft 2022 budget for the first time

BEIRUT – “The 2022 budget might be approved by the Parliament before the elections, but only if the Finance Ministry and the government commit to the conditions discussed,” said Ibrahim Kanaan, MP and chair of the parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee, after the committee’s scheduled meeting on Tuesday.

Here’s what we know:

    • This is the first meeting for the Finance and Budget Committee related to the 2022 budget proposal, and comes a month after it was approved by the government.

    • The purpose of this meeting was for the committee to listen to Finance Minister Youssef Khalil explain the government’s rationale behind the preparation of the budget.

    • In a press briefing after the meeting, Kanaan reiterated his position vis a vis the government’s unrealistic assumptions for estimating economic growth as well as for the collection of taxes. “How will the Lebanese pay for the LL47 trillion projected for the expenditures?” he asked.

    • The deficit estimated by the government amounts to LL8.21 trillion, and is the result of a projected LL47.32 trillion in expenditures and LL39.11 trillion in revenues.

    • Kanaan also stressed that the government should adopt a bare minimum budget, only spending enough to be able to provide basic services, and should not increase taxes before it sets forth a plan for the restructuring of the banking sector and the public debt.

    • Kanaan said he stands behind the unification of exchange rates, and that the US dollar-to-lira rate cannot be raised when salaries are still being calculated based on LL1500 to the dollar rate.

-Kanaan also asked why the budgets’ closing accounts were not audited by the State Audit Bureau. “How can we approve a budget with no audited closing accounts?” he asked.

-Kanaan made similar comments at a conference organized on Feb. 23 by the Social and Economic Council.