BEIRUT: Kataeb Party leader Amine Gemayel said Monday that his party has achieved a great victory for the Lebanese people by pushing forward the amendments to the garbage management bill.
“There was a specialized committee from the party’s political bureau that cooperated with civil society to give all suggestions,” Gemayel said in a news conference Monday afternoon. “We made great achievements in this concern that ensure the highest possible extent of competition between different companies.”
The conference was held less than two hours before a cabinet session that Prime Minister Tammam Salam had called for which aims to reach a solution to the heated dispute over the garbage management controversy.
“We haven’t reached a final solution yet, there is a cabinet meeting tonight to achieve that,” Gemayel said. “We are not looking for any private or partisan interest.”
Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk had submitted a draft policy to the cabinet last month, in which he included a plan to reform the garbage management sector and call for new tenders.
The plan was strongly criticized by the Kataeb, who then filed a list of suggestions to modify the policy “in a manner that increases transparency,” according to the party.
Kataeb official Alber Kostanian spoke after Gemayel to explain the details of the amendments that his party proposed.
He said the next call for tenders that will bring new companies to manage the sector will be postponed for an additional month, to allow companies to prepare for it and for Lebanon to receive the maximum amount of bids.
Kostanian stressed that having the highest extent of competition will save a lot of public money, and will allow a more transparent call for tenders to take place.
The Kataeb proposed new contracts of 15 years for waste treatment companies, and of seven years for garbage collectors.
One of the party’s suggestions, he explained, was to modify the administrative division of areas to facilitate the collection and management.
Kostanian said the suggestions also included a call for tenders that would hire new companies to monitor the performance of the waste management establishments, which would ultimately increase transparency in the sector.
He also stressed that the state must be the side making the decision about the locations of the future landfills to be established in Lebanon.
“If we leave the jurisdiction to choose the landfills’ locations to private companies, we will enter in some kind of corruption, because the companies will then need to work with local politicians to decide on that,” Kostanian held.
He said the landfills must only be built in abandoned quarries and mines to avoid any negative effects on public health, and the percentage of buried garbage must be reduced from the current 80 percent to 25 percent.
Financial motivation for home recycling was another notable element of Kataeb’s suggestions, Kostanian said, saying this method is used in most countries and has been proven effective.
The proposal also included the decentralization of waste management, by tasking municipalities with sweeping the streets, as well as spreading landfills and treatment plants all over Lebanon.
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