BEIRUT: Public Works Minister Ghazi Zeaiter pledged Tuesday to boost the infrastructural projects in the northern city of Tripoli, saying the city’s socio-economic situation was “tragic.”
“North Lebanon governorate in general and Tripoli in particular live in tragic suffering due to the political and economic circumstances that it passed through,” Zeaiter said after visiting Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi as part of his tour of Tripoli.
“We have done our best to lift Tripoli up,” Zeaiter said. “And we hope to be able in 2015 to give the north and especially Tripoli what they deserve [in terms] of projects.”
The minister rejected allegations of transferring budgets from Tripoli’s development projects to others in other areas. “What is for Tripoli has remained and will remain for Tripoli,” he said, promising the north to “make up for the deprivation.”
Zeaiter, who is a representative of the Amal Movement in the Cabinet, praised Rifi and Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas, who accompanied him on his visit, for “the great role they are fulfilling on the level of the nation in general, by answering the demands and offering services to all areas.”
He gave the two ministers credit for the approval of a $100 million budget for Tripoli’s development by the Cabinet.
Zeaiter said he never discriminated between different Lebanese areas based on the sectarian identity of the areas’ residents.
“When I allocated LL3 Billion for the Bekaa, I didn’t dedicate them to the Shiites only,” he said.
“The Bekaa includes Zahle, the West Bekaa, Rashaya, Baalbek and Hermel; Zahle is a Catholic city, Baalbek and Hermel contain Christians and Sunnis as well as Shiites, and the West Bekaa has Druze people.”
Zeaiter said a Justice Palace will be built in Akkar and another in Baalbek-Hermel Qada, explaining that $7 million had been allocated for each of the two projects.
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