MP Kanaan: We cannot continue the budget approval process at the end of the fiscal year, as it would amount to legislation violations

The Parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee convened, headed by MP Ibrahim Kanaan, to hear from the caretaker Finance Minister, Youssef Khalil, regarding the 2023 budget project.

After the session, Kanaan stated, "There was a consensus that the 2023 budget project was referred to at the end of the fiscal year, outside the constitutional deadlines and without final accounts. If we want to grant the government a spending license, it has already spent what it has. If we want to grant it a tax license, it has already collected what it collected. Can we approve a blank check for what it has done without having its financial accounts also?"

He noted that "the committee decided to urge the government to refer the 2024 budget project to the parliament, and this project should include the required rescue and reform vision. Any item or article that the government considers essential, either within the 2023 budget project or outside it, can be presented to us through the 2024 budget project if time permits in the upcoming days or through the discussion that will take place in the Finance and Budget Committee or the General Assembly. The Finance Ministry did not object to this, expressing the government's readiness to do so."

Kanaan said, "We do not close the door to any necessary legal item in the government's view and approved by the parliament. However, we cannot continue the budget approval process at the end of the fiscal year, as this would amount to legislation violations. Everyone is aware of the overruns of more than $11 billion after 2005 and the parliamentary auditing conducted by the Finance and Budget Committee from 2010 to 2019, which revealed that $27 billion were spent without legal documentation, and the file is still with the Court of Audit to this day."

Kanaan pointed out that "Article 86 of the constitution applies to the 2024 budget project if it is referred within the constitutional deadline, to the extent that the government can issue it by decree if the parliament does not decide. However, this does not apply to the 2023 budget project, outside the constitutional deadline, and beyond any financial or legal context."

He noted that "governments should be aware that budgets are a reality that imposes numbers on the parliament, and their violations are unacceptable. I hope that the General Assembly will follow the Finance and Budget Committee's lead because what is required is a clear stance against the government's manipulation since the 1990s by tolerating sending budgets at the end of the year or later and pinning their violations on them as seen in parliamentary and criminal auditing."

Kanaan addressed a constitutional issue raised during the session by some MPs regarding decrees, stating, "It is necessary for the decrees by which the 2024 budget project is referred to take into account the constitutional mechanism in the absence of the President of the Republic. We cannot bypass the presidential void casually. We hope this will be considered, and we will fully respect the constitutional form and legal and financial contents we are discussing."