he president of “The Independence Movement”, MP Michel Moawad stated the following:
Despite my conviction of the constitutional status of today’s Parliament session to endorse the budget amidst the present governmental situation; however, the constitutional violation concerning the discussion and the endorsement of the budget before confirming the final account of 2019 and the previous years. Unfortunately, the resigned government did not send the final account signed by the Court of Accounts to the Parliament before January 31, even though the Parliament procured all the means to facilitate the mission.
Moreover, on the political level, it was supposed to hold the confidence vote session before the budget session to allow to the new government to adopt or discuss or amend or reject the budget, so we, as MPs, we can supervise its performance based on its choices, vision and plan. And this was impossible today in this present situation. The statement of PM Hassan Diab in the session had no constitutional value since his government did not obtain confidence yet. Furthermore, PM Diab adopting the budget is completely rejected because the new government was not formed to continue the old strategies but to make a radical change in policies and performances. Therefore, our role is in supervising the government, its economic vision and the spending mechanisms, which is not available with the current budget with this government. Therefore, I decided not to attend the budget session today even though, in general, I refuse to boycott the institutions because we have to separate the political authority from the constitutional institutions. I insist on working through the constitutional institutions to listen to the people’s requests and supervise the government’s performance. I should admit that endorsing the budget is better than to spend on the “provisional twelfth” and that the Parliament’s Finance and Budget Committee has deployed lot of efforts in this hard situation; however, my decision would be to vote against the budget that became inconvenient amidst this current crisis. In fact, what is required today should represent a complete plan to save the country including the monetary, financial, economic and social policies, as well as fighting corruption and transferring the economy from rent-based economy into productive, to obtain the Lebanese people’s trust and the confidence of the Arab and international communities.