Parliament Fails to Approve Electricity Draft Law
Parliament failed to approve on Wednesday a draft law on electricity that was suggested by Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun.
The draft law allows Energy Minister Jebran Bassil to receive $1,200,000,000 to implement a project on producing 700 Megawatts of electricity.
“Parliament is facing a test of either lighting Lebanon or leaving it in the dark,” he told As Safir newspaper, adding “there is no reason for any team to oppose it.”
But March 14-led opposition sources stressed to An Nahar that the draft law gives Bassil the freedom to use the amount of money without referring to the cabinet or without any monitoring by the Audit Bureau.
Future News reported that an agreement was reached at parliament to provide a detailed account of how the law would be implemented.
The matter will be discussed again at parliament after two weeks, it added.
Opposition MPs and others from the National Struggle Front criticized the law, with MP Butros Harb criticizing MP Aoun for proposing the law on behalf of his son-in-law, Bassil.
He asked whether the suggestion had any family motivations.
National Struggle Front MP Akram Shehayeb stated that the law needed further study.
A dispute also erupted over a draft law that would secure money in the 2011 budget to build prisons in northern and southern Lebanon.
Addressing the issue, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said: “The issue of prisons in Lebanon is one of the country’s greatest problems.”
“I am ashamed to enter the Qobbeh prison in the North as the conditions in it are terrible,” he stated.
An agreement was reached to secure money in the 2011 budget to build prisons in the North and South.
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