Minister of the Displaced Kamal Shehadeh. (Credit: NNA)
Minister of the Displaced Kamal Shehadeh on Friday denied reports that his ministry is set to be dissolved, telling L’Orient-Le Jour that the claims are “unfounded.”
His remarks followed an article published by Lebanon Debate accusing him of seeking to abolish the ministry while many dossiers remain unresolved.
Created in 1992, two years after the end of the 1975-1990 Civil War, the Ministry of the Displaced was tasked with overseeing the return of people displaced during the conflict and providing compensation. Its dissolution has been raised repeatedly over the past two decades but has never been carried out.
“The elimination of the ministry comes up in every statement over the past 20 years, but nothing has been decided yet,” Shehadeh said. He also stressed that “no one will be deprived of their rights and pending compensations will be issued once the ministry secures the necessary funds.”
Lebanon Debate had reported that the minister “insists on eliminating the Ministry of the Displaced, even though compensations and reconciliations in areas affected by the Civil War are not complete.” The outlet quoted unnamed critics as saying: “We cannot dismantle a ministry while sensitive files remain unresolved.”
Shehadeh, who also serves as minister of state for information technology and artificial intelligence, said 35,000 of the 77,000 files processed by the ministry have been digitized. “Once the digitization is complete, we will see what remains to be done regarding the pending files,” he said.
He noted that all outstanding cases date back more than 20 years and that the ministry has not received any funding “for 12 years.”
“The ministry is not an end in itself, but a means,” Shehadeh added. To him, it should be abolished “once its mission is accomplished.”
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