President
Michel Sleiman called for accelerating the preparation of the 2013 budget and finalizing
the electoral law and the expatriates’ voting mechanism. Sleiman’s remarks came
at the beginning of a cabinet session held Monday at Baabda Palace to ratify
the electoral law.
Sleiman called for addressing every day's issues, pointing out that this should not prevent the state from
tackling main issues such as the electoral law and the public-private
partnership. Sleiman said that some of these projects were put on the cabinet's table only to be postpone to a later time.
During the session, Sleiman said that the
2013 budget must be completed immediately, praising the role of the security
forces that managed to arrest the banks’ thief, as well as the LAF that arrested a "terrorist gang".
Following the session, Minister of
Information Walid Daouk stressed that the cabinet followed up on discussions
over the electoral law, electoral districts and expatriates voting, adding that
talks were postponed to tomorrow’s session.
Prior
to the session, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said that there is a real
tendency to discuss and ratify the electoral draft law during today’s session,
adding that if the ratification does not take place, another session will be
held tomorrow. Charbel said that the draft law will be approved by consensus or
voting.
For
his part, Minister of Social Affairs Wael Abou Faour said that the National
Struggle Front ministers will oppose the proposed draft law, adding that the
president is determined to finalize it and send it to the Parliament.
Finance
Minister Mohammad Safadi said that his ministry has done its job in regards to
the salaries and ranks scale “that now rests with the ministerial committee”. Safadi
added that his ministry called for decreasing the figures included in the scale
upon the committee’s will.
Before
the session, a ministerial, judicial and security meeting was held under the
chairmanship of Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, to discuss the issue of telecom
data. Among the participants were Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Interior Minister
Marwan Charbel, Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi, Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn,
Telecommunications Minister Nicolas Sehnawi, ISF Brigadier General Ashraf Rifi,
General Security Head Abbas Ibrahim and Intelligence chief General Edmond Fadel.
Exclusive
sources told LBCI that Sleiman and the meeting’s participants were informed
that security apparatuses are now receiving all the telecom data including the
IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity).