BEIRUT: The Cabinet is expected to vote Tuesday on Telecoms Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui’s newly agreed plan to renew contracts with mobile operators MTC Touch and Alfa.Sehnaoui had said earlier that he managed to persuade the two companies to adopt his plan to renew the contracts and that it is now up to the Cabinet to decide whether to accept it.

According to the new contracts signed with the operators, the two companies must abide by and implement 12 clauses in the agreement.

Among the conditions in the contract are: Implement national roaming across the country; install new mobile applications, 80 percent of which should come from Lebanon; implement and supervise the quality control system to ensure that mobile conversations are not interrupted; and install 400 stations with 1,200 antennas to guarantee good coverage across Lebanon.

Sources told The Daily Star that Sehnaoui had insisted that 60 percent of the companies’ revenues would be fixed while the remaining 40 percent would depend on the completion of all the conditions set by the Telecommunications Ministry.

“If the companies meet all the 12 conditions during a certain time then they will receive the remaining 40 percent of revenues. If not, then they will have to be satisfied with the 60 percent,” the source said.

The source did not disclose the value of the contract but assured that it is less than the amount the companies currently receive.

Each company is now making a profit of $50 million a year.

The contract between the companies and the Telecoms Ministry will not be revealed to the public until the government approves the plan.

Sehnaoui said that if the government turns down his plan, he will scrap the contract with the companies which expires Tuesday.

The minister’s second option if the government rejects his plan is to launch a new tender process. If this also fails, the Telecommunications Ministry would be ready to run the network by itself.

There are 3.2 million cellular subscribers in Lebanon.

But many subscribers and users complain that the service has deteriorated quickly over the past two years because the government has not made any significant investments to upgrade the network.

The telecoms sector generates more than $1.6 billion in annual revenues for the treasury.