Kanaan lecturning at Issam Fares Center: ‘The relationship between reform and democracy
Annahar- 20 January 2011
“The role of the legislator in financial reform” is the title of a seminar held by the chairman of the budget and finance committee, Deputy Ibrahi Kanaan in Issam Fares Center for Lebanon. He talked about the relationship between financial reform and democracy and tackled issues regarding the mechanism of the budget and finance committee as well as parliamentary control over financial affairs in the country. The seminar was attended by political and economic personalities, mayors and interested parties. The opening was a welcome speech by the director of the center M. Abdallah Bou Habib. Then, it was Kanaan’s turn. He indicated that “not exceeding the 12th of the previous legal budget in any given month was not respected in the past years. Some parts of the expenditure happened on the basis of projects that were not passed and ratified by the Parliament. Before updating legislations, we should apply the existing ones. As a result of the 6 meetings held by the Committee with the Finance Ministry and Accounting Council, we noticed many irregular financial practices. The financial administration is responsible for these practices through its neglect, with the cover of the political administration that ignored the malpractice and neglect. ”
Kanaan exposed the different kinds of parliamentary control over financial affairs before and after the execution. He added that parliamentary committees have the right to appoint a fact finding secondary committee in any case. The whole committee with all its member can play this role as well. He demonstrated how the committee can perform these three monitoring tasks, emphasizing the need to translate the Lebanese Government Statement in the Budget, by giving the priority to short and medium term expenditure and allocating funds on this basis. Efforts were deployed to include detailed data about the countries engagements from previous years along with past funds and expenditures from the Treasury.
He indicated that the committee has to include copies of the documents presented by the Ministries to the Finance Ministry to justify their requested funds, along with copies of the records related to the study of each request to the Finance Ministry. He insisted on the need to discuss the budget projects in the future because this alarming practice.
Answering a question, Kanaan considered that “the financial dossier, fighting corruption and introducing reforms are the basis of building institutions because the current situation will lead to the collapse of the state.”