Fadlallah: Why is there a delay in reconstruction since the money is there and files are complete?

16-12-2008

Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Hassan Fadlallah addressed parliament on Tuesday and outlined his objections to the way reconstruction was handled after the 2006 July War.

"My question is to the prime minister because he is the general supervisor of the Higher Relief Commission," he said. Fadlallah said he had wanted to know when the issue would be resolved, "but we just heard ineffective generalizations." He added that those concerned with reparations tried to keep discussion of the topic away from media so as not to complicate things.

"We should remind the prime minister and the cabinet of what they committed to in the ministerial statement concerning compensations," he said, noting that the issue of reparations entailed dealing with the temporary housing assigned to those who lost property, repairing damaged factories and media outlets and reconstruction of infrastructure.

Fadlallah asked why there was a delay in reconstruction since "the money is there, and the files are complete; We only need to release the checks." He also called for ending the practice of donor countries adopting specific regions to help.

"How does the cabinet allow itself to transfer donations to other regions? Our request is to return the money as it was decided before," he asked, "As for the infrastructure, there are amounts of money that have been given by the international bank in this regard."

He said he hoped the issue would be resolved through cooperation with the cabinet "to give people their rights," and said that it was better to hand out the aid money sooner rather than later so that it didn't get embezzled. "We know that some states are complaining because they did not yet see where their money is," he said.

"We control our streets and tell the people when to protest, and we decided to keep the issue away from media debates... Every right should be given to whom it belongs," he concluded.