Despite a temporary halt in the construction of the Ouzai bridge, accusations flew Friday with Hizbullah members accusing Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of manipulating facts concerning the project in a report presented to the Cabinet a day earlier.
At a news conference at Hizbullah’s information headquarters in Haret Hreik, politburo member Nayef Krayyem said Hizbullah had agreed in 1995 to the widening of the Ouzai main road ­ at the time Beirut’s only southern point of access ­ as part of a construction package including the development of Ouzai’s infrastructure.
“In case relocation of some residents was needed, compounds to be constructed within the project would have given shelter for those … evicted from their shops or houses,” he said.
The government adopted the complete package in 1995 and launched the Elissar Project, according to Krayyem, who serves as a member on Elissar’s board.
“But as the traffic problem was solved with the opening of an alternative highway that links the Coccodi intersection to Khaldeh’s highway, we see no need for another bridge,” he said. “Rather, we need development of infrastructure in Ouzai.”
In his report to the Cabinet on Thursday, Hariri affirmed the government was still planning to rehabilitate the area’s infrastructure and that Elissar had carried out extensive studies for presentation to the Kuwaiti Fund, aiming for a $150 million loan.
The report added that the government of Iran had offered additional assistance to the rehabilitation project through low-interest loans.
Hariri reported, however, that the Coccodi-Khaldeh link would not sufficiently solve the traffic problem at Beirut’s southern entrance completely.
Krayyem responded that according to the Elissar plan, a 60-meter-wide highway was needed to ease traffic conditions at the southern entrance.
“The Ouzai bridge would give an extra 22 meters in width to the Coccodi-Khaldeh highway, while widening the Ouzai road would yield an extra 36 meters,” Krayyem explained.
In a statement earlier in the day, Former Prime Minister Salim Hoss said his government had dismissed the Ouzai bridge idea for two reasons: “First, because the traffic problem was solved with the opening of an alternative highway and second because of the priority of curbing the rising public debt.”
Responding to the former prime minister, Beirut MP Adnan Araqji, a member of Hariri’s Dignity Bloc, said in a statement that the former government should have cancelled the decree stipulating the bridge’s construction by issuing another decree.
Meanwhile, Krayyem’s tone escalated during the conference as he refuted Hariri’s claim that while Elissar had estimated the sum of compensation for residents evicted from their homes near the airport at $8.2 billion, Hizbullah insisted that the sum be raised to $14.2 million.
“This is fabrication and manipulation of facts,” he said.
“On June 16, 2001, it was Elissar that decided $15 million be paid to these residents, and not Hizbullah.”
But Krayyem claimed that Hariri had decided to cut the compensation payments down to $8.2 (million), “a sum equal to what Hariri’s advisers paid three … members of his political movement to evict (them from) their property in Jnah.”
He added that although one of the three received his payment in 1997, he remained in the building until the beginning of 2002.
Krayyem also questioned the discrepancy between the numbers that Hariri and Future TV disseminated about the total sum of compensation that Hizbullah allegedly requested for all the evicted.
“(Future TV) said the number was $42 million, while Hariri said during the Cabinet meeting yesterday that the number was $100 million,” he said.
Hussein Musawi, executive assistant to Hizbullah’s secretary-general, joined Krayyem in condemning the government’s actions, accusing Hariri’s government of trying to evict people from Ouzai.
Speaking at the opening of a vocational training session, Musawi said: “What we’re asking for is not reimbursement since it will lead to displacement. All that we’re seeking is the construction of modest housing units that would shelter these people.”
According to the Hizbullah official, out of the country’s $31 billion debt, “$5 billion to $8 billion were spent on (development) projects, while at least $22 billion were stolen by government officials.”
Addressing the same subject, prominent Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said in a statement that he hoped government planning would have taken residents into consideration, especially “when such projects threaten the interests of a whole area by negatively affecting its residents’ economic interests.”
Earlier in the morning, Ouzai residents gathered at a local mosque, where residents’ committee president Faisal Yahfoufi criticized the government’s actions, saying that most political parties, including the Progressive Socialist Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and the Amal Movement opposed the construction of the bridge.

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