BEIRUT: A Cabinet meeting got underway Thursday amid ongoing disputes over making Lebanese University professors permanent employees and the appropriate mechanism for government spending.
The issue of making LU professors full-time employees is the first item on the Cabinet's agenda, with tension rising as ministers remain adamant in their stances.
Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb said the Progressive Socialist Party, which he represents, is seeking a response from Education Minister Elias Bou Saab as to why a “qualified LU dean has been removed.”
Bou Saab, for his part, said he was ready to answer any question, but added: “I believe matters have taken a political turn.”
Hezbollah ministers expressed support for Bou Saab.
“No one objected when the minister [Bou Saab] presented his report to all the [political] forces,” Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hasan said.
On the mechanism for spending and payments of monthly salaries to civil servants, Minister of state Mohammad Fneish said Hezbollah insisted on Parliament passing a law to authorize extra-budgetary expenditure of funds.
Economy Minister Alain Hakim criticized the call to change the procedures for spending: “Things were going fine for the past 11 years. Why do they want to change things today?”
Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi echoed the Future Movement and the March 14 coalition positions on spending, both of which insist that the issue of paying salaries for civil servants was resolved by a 2006 law under the mandate of former President Emile Lahoud.
“But we are with making new laws in matters deemed urgent like the eurobonds and state budget,” Rifi told reporters before joining the Cabinet meeting which began around 11 a.m.
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