Jumblat: Salary Scale Inapplicable Without Proper Revenues, Reforms
Democratic Gathering leader MP Walid Jumblat said on Wednesday that allocating revenues for the wage scale law should have been made possible in order to make the law applicable.
“We have already warned that the salary scale would be impossible to implement without proper revenues and reforms. Nobody listened. We have signed on an inapplicable bill,” said Jumblat in a tweet.
The Constitutional Council had ordered late in August a suspension of the implementation of the new tax law that was approved to fund a new wage scale for civil servants and the armed forces.
The suspension is aimed at “studying the appeal in form and content,” the Council had said.
The Council, Lebanon's highest constitutional court, also decided to hold a September 15 session to “discuss the appeal” and “an open-ended session on September 18 to issue a ruling should the appeal be accepted.”
Reports have circulated lately that putting the wage scale law into implementation by the end of September may not possible in light of controversy over the taxes to fund it.
The new taxes involve hiking the VAT tax from 10% to 11%, fines on seaside violations, and taxes on cement, administrative transactions, sea imports, lottery prizes, tobacco, alcohol, travel tickets, financial firms and banks.
Authorities have argued that the new taxes are necessary to fund the new wage scale but opponents of such a move have called for finding new revenues through putting an end to corruption and the waste of public money.
Source: Naharnet
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