Jumblat Says Wage Scale Won't be Altered, Slams Atallah Remarks

Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat on Tuesday reassured that the new wage scale for civil servants and the armed forces will not be altered.

The wage scale was approved in 2017 after strenuous negotiations and years of street protests.

Separately, Jumblat said that the World Bank is laying out some demands related to lowering expenditure, noting that any such measure should begin with “the salaries of former ministers and MPs, the rents of governmental buildings and the army's Measure 3.”

“I'm a former MP and my monthly salary amounts to $6,000 and this is not fair,” Jumblat said in a video interview with the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa portal.

Commenting on remarks by Minister of the Displaced Ghassan Atallah that “Christians are still afraid to sleep at night in Mount Lebanon (Chouf and Aley),” Jumblat said: “Let's ask his political part whether it accepts this statement.”

“Does the Free Patriotic Movement accept the remarks of the minister of the displaced, especially after the (Christian) reconciliation with the PSP?” Jumblat added.