Yearly allocations given out to municipalities

Municipal Fund shrinks by 12 percent

The Cabinet has agreed to distribute the proceeds of the Mutual Municipal Fund for the year 2011, totaling around $280 million. In 2010 the municipal fund proceeds had totaled $320 million.

The Ministry of Interior and Municipalities issued a decree setting out the provisions allocated for each municipality. Some $33.6 million will be distributed among 51 municipality unions based on the size of the registered population and the number of municipalities included in each union. Around $12.3 million will be granted to the Civil Defense independent fund.

The remaining $234 million will be distributed among municipalities. The decree stipulated that 90 percent of this amount (around $211 million) will be distributed according to the population of each town and according to the direct fees owing to each municipality during the past two years. The remaining ten percent ($23 million) will be distributed among municipalities that have a population of 4,000 people or less.

Beirut’s municipality will receive $41 million. As for some of the other main cities, $10 million were allocated to Tripoli, $3.5 million to Zahleh, $3.2 million to Saida, $1.7 million to Tyre, $1.5 million to Jounieh, and $657,000 to Jbeil. The municipalities of Ghobeiri and Jdeideh will get $2 million each. Baalbeck will receive $1.6 million. Hadath and Baabda will receive $1 million and $927,000 respectively. Aley will get $824,000 while Beiteddine will receive $116,000.