A peaceful meeting yesterday

The council of ministers held a four-hour session, yesterday in Baabda, to debate the 1998 budget. In contrast to the last cabinet meeting, this one was described as peaceful, since all the ministers agreed on the necessity to fix the deficit problem. All were in favor of cutting public spending.

Supervised by President Elias Hrawi, the ministers discussed new revenues that would not affect the poor. These proposals included raising cellular phones fees, higher road taxes, introducing a public beach property tax, taxes on hotel and restaurant bills, increasing the import duties on certain items, taxes on the foreign workers in Lebanon, and raising passport fees.

Prime Minister Rafik Hariri announced the results after the session. He declared that, when the budget will be voted, the government will not allow any expenditure unless a source of funding it is identified. He also affirmed that it will be voted in on time, promising that it will not affect social services nor the pace of the development and reconstruction of the country. While the mentioned proposals are being studied and translated into numbers, a new cabinet meeting was announced, tomorrow in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Hariri held a series of one-to-one meetings with twelve ministers, to discuss the decrease of the ministries' budgets. During the meetings which took place in the governmental palace yesterday, the ministers were informed that their budgets will be slashed by ten to thirty percent. Minister of Social Affairs Ayoub Humayed expressed his fear that this step might lead to further problems and complications. He also affirmed that it should include all the ministries without exception.