BEIRUT: Lebanon’s public transport sector is to receive fuel subsidies in an effort to limit the impact of rising fuel prices, the head of the Public Transportation Drivers Union, Marwan Fayyad, told The Daily Star online.
He said each public taxi driver would receive 40 liters of gasoline for the price of LL50,000 per day.
Fuel prices reached a record high Wednesday as the price of 20 liters of 95-octane-graded gasoline was set at LL36,700 and 98-octane-graded gasoline was priced at LL37,300. Twenty liters of kerosene is currently sold for LL31,700, fuel oil for LL31,500 and diesel for LL32,100.
Fayyad said President Michel Sleiman had approved the union’s demand during a meeting held at the presidential palace last week.
Public Works parliamentary committee head MP Mohammad Qabbani told the Daily Star that a preliminary agreement on the subsidy had been reached and said that it would be one of the topics to be discussed at Tuesday’s meeting of the committee. Fayyad, for his part, believed the meeting would finalize the subsidy and discuss ways to implement it.
Tuesday’s meeting will be attended by caretaker finance, energy and transportation ministers, Raya al-Hasan, Jibran Bassil and Ghazi Aridi respectively, in addition to representatives of the public taxi driver unions.
Qabbani said the committee was to discuss ways to “reinforce and support public transport so that it would absorb at least 70 percent of the citizens’ transportation needs as is the case in most countries of the world.”
As well as discussing the possibility for subsidized fuel for public taxi drivers’ cars and diesel for buses and trucks. Qabbani said the committee would also look for a mechanism to reduce waste.
He said the committee would forward its recommendations to caretaker Prime Mnister Saad Hariri’s government for final approval.
Taxi and bus drivers stepped up pressure on the authorities last week to cut the prices of gasoline and other oil derivatives that are eroding the incomes of many Lebanese families.