Now Lebanon - Houri against “blindly” approving energy plan - September 15, 2011

Future bloc MP Ammar Houri said on Saturday that his bloc “will regard the energy plan as an urgent need for people, but that does not mean that we will [blindly] approve it without discussions.”
“[March 14] will present some amendments to provide more transparency to the plan,” he told Voice of Lebanon (100.5) radio station.
Following a long dispute between ministers, the cabinet approved the electricity plan to transfer funds to the Energy Ministry and increase energy output by 700 megawatts.

Houri also said that Hezbollah and Prime Minister Najib Mikati have contradictory points of view regarding funding for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), adding that the government does not have a lot of time left to commit to its obligations [toward the STL].”
The Hezbollah-led March 8 parties –which currently dominate Lebanon’s cabinet – have opposed a clause in the Lebanese annual state budget pertaining to the funding of the tribunal. Meanwhile, Mikati said in comments published September 2 that the government will commit to paying Lebanon’s share of funding for the STL, which is investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Lebanon contributes 49 percent of the STL’s annual funding.
In June the UN-backed court indicted four members of Hezbollah for the murder of Hariri.