The Lebanese Parliament yesterday approved the financing of the rationing program for the most vulnerable families in Lebanon, while the subsidy program should soon end. The sums to be disbursed will however remain at the discretion of the government while no return of Prime Minister Saad Hariri is expected and armed men have appeared in the streets of Tripoli in northern Lebanon.
For the time being, the situation therefore seems set to deteriorate further in terms of security or even economically, with World Bank projections forecasting the continuation of the recession to the tune of over 9% in 2021.
The creation of this rescue net program to replace the subsidy program was adopted by the Lebanese parliament on March 12 and signed by the President of the Republic on April 8 before being published in the official journal.
This program aims to set up a prepaid payment card which would thus be given to households vulnerable to the economic crisis. They would thus receive 100,000 pounds per month per person for about a year, wanted the Bank of Lebanon while the World Bank had indicated that it required that these sums be made available at the real rate of the local currency.
It should make it possible to reduce the cost of aid to the most vulnerable people from 6 billion to 3 billion dollars by targeting them better instead of targeting the entire population.
At the same time, several proposals referred to the parliamentary committees, those concerning the exemption of ambulances, firefighters and emergency vehicles belonging to associations, municipalities and the Federation of municipalities from traffic rights and registration or a proposal for Law to provide additional £ 300 billion in budget 2020 to support financially struggling private schools.
