Joseph Farah wrote in “Al Diyar”: Last Thursday, the House of Representatives approved a draft law aiming to open an additional appropriation in the 2026 budget worth 56,500 billion liras, to finance six additional salaries for workers in the public sector, provided that the decision is applied retroactively as of the first of last March.








The problem of financing has not yet been decided. Will the Parliament abandon the one percent value-added tax since this tax includes all segments of society, or will it search for new revenues, especially since the Minister of Finance is offering alternative options if the pending tax is not decided, and that opening the new appropriation will increase the budget deficit that has been affected by the repercussions of the Lebanese displacement. In any case, the understanding between the government and the Public Administration Employees Association stipulated that the six salaries be approved first, with a second phase to be completed before the end of 2026, raising the total amount the employee receives to the equivalent of about 50% of the value of his salary in 2019. Then, during the year 2027, a new salary series would be approved that would raise the value to what it was in 2019. In this context, the President of the Public Administration Employees Association, Raed Hamada, called for The government conducted a fair study of the series of ranks and salaries, considering that increasing six salaries for public sector employees represents only the restoration of a small part of the value lost as a result of the collapse. This increase represents only 19 parts of the salary for the year 2019, if we consider today that the salary is equivalent to 60 parts. Hamada confirmed that public sector employees will return to their offices, but with half-work while maintaining the principle of rotation.