Cabinet resolves spending crisis, approves LL10 trillion loans

BEIRUT: The Cabinet overcame Thursday the spending crisis that had paralyzed its work for months by approving advanced payments and treasury loans worth over LL10 trillion ($6.7 billion) to cover public administration expenses for 2012 and finance projects in Tripoli and other areas.

Addressing the Cabinet meeting he chaired at Baabda Palace, President Michel Sleiman said priority should be given to an intra-Lebanese National Dialogue, scheduled to take place on June 11, and to energizing Cabinet work, Information Minister Walid Daouk told reporters after the meeting.

The third priority, Sleiman said, was to explain the Lebanese situation to Arab Gulf states which have issued warnings to its nationals against visiting Lebanon following a series of security incidents in the north. Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have warned their nationals against travel to Lebanon following deadly clashes in Tripoli last month.

The Cabinet approved an urgent draft law to allocate LL10.394 trillion in treasury bills to cover public administration expenses for 2012, Daouk said.

He added that the Cabinet also approved a treasury loan of LL150 billion to finance the implementation of some development projects in Tripoli and another treasury loan of LL450 billion to fund implementation of development projects in other parts of the country.

The decision to fund projects in Tripoli came after deadly clashes between armed supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad that gripped the countrys second-largest city in recent weeks in a clear sign of the spillover of the Syrian unrest into Lebanon.

Sleiman, who returned Wednesday from a one-day visit to Qatar and the UAE after visiting Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, said that his Gulf tour had been to brief officials in these countries on the situation in Lebanon and to seek their help in securing the release of the 11 Lebanese hostages held by Syrian rebels.

He added that Lebanon had been able in the past year-and-a-half not to serve as an arena for conflict or a springboard for any attack on any Arab country or interference in Arab affairs, particularly the Syrian crisis, according to Daouk.

Sleiman said that concerns voiced by Arab Gulf states over the security situation and warnings to their nationals against travel to Lebanon prompted him to move on three paths: To call for an intra-Lebanese National Dialogue which, he said, should be the first and permanent path in Lebanon; to energize Cabinets work and streamline the citizens affairs in all fields; and to explain Lebanons position to Arab states, particularly Gulf states.

I have sent the invitations to dialogue and I hope they will be accepted by all, Sleiman said.

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Cabinet resolves spending crisis, approves LL10 trillion loans