BEIRUT: The Cabinet agreed in a rare move Wednesday to financially support four Lebanese patients – three children and a woman – who need to travel abroad for medical treatment, but postponed talks on the country’s telecommunications sector until next week.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil met with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri at the latter’s Beirut Downtown residence, discussing with him “financial and political issues,” according to a statement released by Hariri’s media office.
Khalil, a key political aide to Speaker Nabih Berri, did not speak to reporters after the meeting, which comes a few days before national dialogue leaders are scheduled to meet in three successive sessions on Aug. 2, 3 and 4 to try to reach a package deal over key issues, including the election of a president, a new vote law and the shape of a new government.
Speaking at a ceremony launching a 5.5.kilometer long red carpet at Zaitunay Bay Wednesday night that marks the opening of the Beirut International Award Festival to honor a number of creators from Lebanon and the world, Hariri underlined the urgent need to end the presidential vacuum, now in its third year.
“I think Lebanon has already entered the Guinness Book [in view of the continued presidential vacuum]. We must elect a president,” Hariri said. “All political blocs must make their decisions that the election of a president should take place as soon as possible.”
Lebanon has been left without a head of state since former President Michel Sleiman’s six-year tenure ended in May 2014. Parliament has since been unable to convene due to a lack of quorum to choose a successor. A new Parliament session to elect a president is set for Aug. 8.
Although Wednesday’s special Cabinet meeting was originally devoted to discussing the telecommunications sector amid demands for the extension of contracts for Lebanon’s two mobile operators, Health Minister Wael Abu Faour had brought with him the files of four patients who urgently need surgery, including a liver transplant, outside Lebanon.
“The Cabinet agreed in a rare move to help in covering the expenses of four patients – three boys and a girl – who need to undergo surgeries abroad,” Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi told The Daily Star. He said the costs of the four surgeries, including a liver transplant, are estimated at LL1 billion. “The state will contribute 50 percent of the total costs,” he said.
Azzi added that the Cabinet does not have special funds or budget to deal with Lebanese patients who need medical treatment abroad. “We will work to have such a budget,” he said.
Speaking to reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Information Minister Ramzi Joreige said: “The Cabinet agreed on the state’s contribution toward helping some patients in the costs of surgeries abroad.”
Without giving details on either these surgeries or their costs, Joreige said: “The Cabinet tasked the health minister with preparing a draft system concerning the rules and conditions under which the state can help in the medical treatment of Lebanese [patients] abroad in the cases that are difficult to treat in Lebanon.”
Abu Faour said Minister for the Displaced Alice Shabtini donated LL45 million ($29,870) for a child in need of surgery.
A rally was simultaneously held in Riad al-Solh Square just next to the Grand Serail, where people called on the government to help Rozine Moughalian travel to France for a liver transplant.
Moughalian, a 56 year-old psychologist and mother of two from Burj Hammoud, developed sub-acute liver failure over the last three months. Doctors say she needs a liver transplant in the next few days, and a petition has been started to get her to France.
After debating a report by Telecommunications Minister Boutros Harb on the administrative situation of his ministry, the Cabinet decided to continue discussing the issue next Thursday.
“I have not yet finished preparing a report over the extension of [mobile] phone contracts. Therefore this file won’t be discussed in today’s session,” Harb said before entering the session.The government has renewed the contracts with the current cellular operators alfa and touch in the past. Harb said that the contracts with the international companies were conducted in a transparent manner, rejecting allegations that there were suspicious deals and transactions at his ministry.
Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil and Education Minister Elias Bou Saab, both members of the Free Patriotic Movement, criticized Harb as they entered the session.
“If you are not able to convince anyone [that you are doing your job], then confuse them … This is what Harb is doing with his 700-page report,” Bassil said, in reference to the report Harb took in with him to the session.
The Cabinet also tasked Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb with heading the committee that is looking into ways to manage the country’s solid waste, after Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk stepped down from the committee’s leadership.
Chehayeb had been tasked throughout most of the country’s eight-month trash crisis to find a solution to Lebanon’s worst environmental problem, which finally ended in March after the government decided to establish two landfills close to Beirut.
Commenting on the security situation in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh in south Lebanon, Machnouk said: “The situation is under control.”
Meanwhile, the joint parliamentary committees failed again Wednesday to reach agreement on a new electoral law, as rivals remained deeply split over what voting system should be used for next year’s parliamentary polls.
“We did not reach any final decision. But discussions will continue at the next sessions,” lawmaker Robert Ghanem, the committees’ rapporteur, told reporters after the meeting chaired by Deputy Parliament Speaker Farid Makari.
Ghanem, however, said that there was agreement on the “importance of discussing a hybrid electoral system because it constitutes the biggest common ground among various parliamentary blocs.”
“This could lead to an understanding later on a hybrid law,” he added.
MP Ali Fayyad from Hezbollah’s bloc was skeptical, saying that the final outcome of the committees’ deliberations is “zero.”
“Attention is now focused on the three successive sessions of national dialogue starting next Tuesday,” he said.
MPs had previously agreed to discuss two hybrid draft laws based on proportional representation and a winner-take-all system.