BEIRUT: A Cabinet meeting Thursday is expected to get heated over the food safety campaign and waste management controversy, as PSP ministers warned minutes ahead of the session against attempts to delay the Naameh dump closure.
“Sufficient studies have been made on the Naameh landfill,” Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb told reporters as he walked into the meeting, which began at 10:30 a.m.
“We are with implementing the Cabinet decisions,” Chehayeb said of the Jan. 17 deadline set by the government last year for the closure of the controversial Naameh landfill, south of Beirut.
Health Minister Wael Abu Faour, also a member of MP Walid Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party, ruled out a decision to postpone the Naameh dump shutdown.
“I think delay is out of the question,” he said before joining the cabinet session headed by Prime Minister Tammam Salam.
Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk said earlier this week the landfill would not be closed on time, warning that garbage would flood the streets if the dump was shut down and no alternative was found to waste treatment.
But Chehayeb said he has an alternative.
“The only thing we will approve [at Thursday’s meeting] is decentralization in the sense that each district would take responsibility for its own waste,” he said.
Naameh residents have vowed to shut down the landfill by Jan. 17 on their own if the Cabinet failed to do so.
Abu Faour also decried the lack of accountability and lax attitudes over the implementation of food safety standards.
“There is no accountability at the administrative or judicial levels up to this moment,” he told reporters at the Grand Serail, adding that “I will raise this issue during today’s Cabinet meeting.”
The Cabinet will also address a dispute over the food safety campaign that has pitted Abu Faour against Economy Minister Alain Hakim.
Hakim had criticized Abu Faour’s two-month-old campaign to combat food corruption, describing it as a “circus show” and “propaganda campaign.”
However, ministerial sources told The Daily Star differences among ministers would not lead to the Cabinet’s resignation or paralysis because this government was needed for political, constitutional and security reasons.
No comments:
Post a Comment