Lebanese President Michel Aoun believes that the audit of the Central Bank of Lebanon and a number of financial institutions will primarily restore the confidence of the international community and facilitate the reform process, the presidential office said on Tuesday following Aoun's meeting with EU Ambassador to Beirut Ralph Tarraf and Regional Director of the Levant Department at the World Bank Saroj Kumar Jah
BEIRUT (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st December, 2020) Lebanese President Michel Aoun believes that the audit of the Central Bank of Lebanon and a number of financial institutions will primarily restore the confidence of the international community and facilitate the reform process, the presidential office said on Tuesday following Aoun's meeting with EU Ambassador to Beirut Ralph Tarraf and Regional Director of the Levant Department at the World Bank Saroj Kumar Jah.
Last week, the Lebanese parliament discussed the holding of the audit of the Central Bank at the president's instruction. Following the session, all factions supported the idea "to subject Central Bank accounts, ministries, independent interests, councils, funds and public institutions, in parallel, to forensic audit without any hindrance or invoking banking secrecy," the presidential office said.
"President Aoun considered that this audit would enable us to know every Dollar spent, or which will be spent, in Lebanon to achieve the state's credibility towards the international community, especially donor countries," the office said in a press release.
Lebanon has been suffering from the worst economic crisis in 30 years, which prompted mass nationwide demonstrations last October and resulted in the resignation of then-Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
After the formation of the new government of Hassan Diab in January, the new prime minister said that several billion dollars had been siphoned from the country since the beginning of unrest on October 17, 2019. Representatives of the People's Movement demanded an investigation and a detailed explanation of the budget funds spending.
To conduct an investigation and audit, which was one of the conditions to get a loan from the International Monetary Fund, the Lebanese authorities reached an agreement with Alvarez & Marsal, headquartered in New York. However, in early November, the company refused to continue its work under the pretext of a refusal by the Central Bank to provide the necessary audit documentation. The bank, in turn, explained the refusal by the existence of a bank secrecy law.
