Shehayyeb's Committee Report Expected this Week as Municipalities Await Funds
Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb is expected to deliver to Prime Minister Tammam Salam this week a report on ways to resolve the country's waste crisis.
Salam appointed Shehayyeb on Monday to lead a committee of waste specialists after Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq suspended his participation in the meetings of a ministerial committee tasked with resolving the garbage problem.
Ministerial sources told An Nahar and al-Mustaqbal dailies on Tuesday that the report will include a proposal on the collection of waste in light of which it will be decided if an extraordinary cabinet session is necessary to approve the mechanism.
Al-Mashnouq complained on Monday that he was the only official trying to resolve the garbage crisis.
“Most of the political parties are running away from their responsibilities,” he said.
Last week, the cabinet failed to award contracts for waste management to bidding companies over the high costs but it promised municipalities funds to begin their own garbage management programs.
“You Stink,” which is the main organizer of anti-government protests, has threatened escalatory measures if the government doesn't release the funds by Tuesday evening.
During its last protest in downtown Beirut on Saturday, it issued the 72-hour ultimatum for the authorities to meet their demands, including the resignation of the environment minister.
In longer term goals, the activist group called for new parliamentary elections and the election of a president to fill a post that has been vacant since May last year due to political squabbling.
The government's failure to resolve the trash crisis has evolved into wider protests against a political class that has dominated Lebanon since the end of the country's civil war in 1990 and a government that has failed to provide even basic services to its people.
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