BEIRUT - The Lebanese Finance Ministry confirmed on Monday that it transferred the country’s share of the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
According to the National News Agency, the ministry confirmed the transfer of 29 million Euros to the tribunal.
The report came after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati said Sunday that the cabinet presidency tasked the ministry with transferring the required credit to the STL.
“The Finance Ministry’s monitor of expenditures referred the [STL financing] form to the Audit Bureau,” Miqati said in a statement.
It went on to stress that “the Finance Ministry is the [party] that handed the [financing] papers to the Audit Bureau,” in a direct denial of claims made by caretaker Finance Minister Mohammad al-Safadi that Miqati made the said move.
“The Finance Minister should have followed up on the matter with the administrative units of his ministry,” the caretaker premier’s press office added.
In comments published earlier on Sunday in Al-Mustaqbal newspaper, Safadi criticized Miqati for allegedly referring the paperwork of the financing of the STL to the Audit Bureau to be examined.
The caretaker finance minister later responded to Miqati’s remarks.
“The Finance Ministry prepared the decree and the finance minister signed it, then referred it to the cabinet presidency where Miqati signed it and transferred it to President Michel Suleiman who, in turn, signed it and gave it back to the cabinet presidency.”
“The cabinet presidency’s monitor of expenditures immediately sent it to the Audit Bureau according to the law,” Safadi’s press office explained.
A newspaper report said earlier in December that a “roadmap” was drawn for Lebanon to finance its share of the STL.
Sources told Al-Hayat daily that the financing will be sourced from the government budget reserve and that the procedure was launched by caretaker Finance Minister Mohammad Safadi.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon probing the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005 is set to start its landmark trial on January 16, 2014.
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/lebanonnews/527543-finance-ministry-transfers-required-funding-to-stl
