Buses arrive at the Beirut port. (Credit: Hussam Shbaro)
BEIRUT — Lebanon has received 50 buses donated by France in an effort to improve the country’s public transportation system, caretaker Public Works Minister Ali Hamieh and French ambassador to Lebanon Anne Grillo announced Monday morning from the Beirut port.
Here’s what we know:
• Speaking at the port, Hamieh thanked Grillo and French President Emanuel Macron for the donation and asked “all the countries in the world to help Lebanon as France did without any conditions in return.” Hamieh also asked other countries to assist Lebanon “not just with food donations but also through strengthening its productive sectors.” The caretaker public works minister added that France is going to help Lebanon prepare terms of reference for a plan for the public transport sector.
• A spokesperson for the minister told L’Orient Today that the ministry’s plan is a collaboration between the private and the public sectors in public transportation “where the government places a plan for the sector and the private sector is the applicant of the plan.”
• Hamieh also thanked the French transportation and shipping company CMA-CGM for fixing 40 buses that were damaged by the port explosion. The minister’s spokesperson told L’Orient Today that the French company repaired these government-owned buses free of charge.
• Commenting on the government’s economic recovery plan, which was approved on Friday in cabinet’s last session before it assumed caretaker status now that a new Parliament has been elected, Hamieh said that he opposed the plan “not out of spite but because it did not guarantee the rights of the depositors’ money.” He also said that the plan does not include economic details of what the government is going to do in the case of restructuring banks, among other things.
• Mikati had said after the cabinet session on Friday that “we have agreed with the International Monetary Fund to secure deposits up to $100,000”; however, a copy of the rescue plan seen by L'Orient Today did not contain any figure regarding the amount of deposits that would be protected.