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Beirut – The restructuring consultancy Alvarez & Marsal decided to withdraw from its mission of auditing the accounts of the Central Bank of Lebanon to discover the circumstances of the financial engineering that led the country to collapse, as its efforts collided with the interruption and concealment of documents, which that embarrassed Lebanon in front of donors.
Reuters quoted Ghazi Wazni, the Lebanese acting finance minister, as saying on Friday that “restructuring consultancy Alvarez & Marsal withdrew from the criminal audit of the Central Bank of Lebanon because it did not receive sufficient information to conduct the audit.”
The Lebanese Presidency also issued a statement in which it stated that Wazni informed President Michel Aoun of the consultancy’s decision to terminate the audit contract, which is a prerequisite for providing external financial support to help Lebanon emerge from a crisis. financial
The statement said that Álvarez & Marsal had informed Wazni “its uncertainty about such information,” even in light of a three-month extension announced on November 5, for the central bank to present the data it has withheld so far.
The central bank, which has been facing intense scrutiny since the financial crisis began in October 2019, had said that it had submitted its own accounts for scrutiny and that the government should submit state accounts to prevent the central bank from violating laws. legally binding bank secrecy.
The International Monetary Fund and foreign donors, especially France, are pushing for audits to address endemic waste and corruption, as Lebanon faces a financial crisis that has led to non-payment of sovereign debts, the collapse of the currency and paralyzed the banking sector.
The International Monetary Fund, through its conversations with the Lebanese authorities, calls for the need to carry out an accounting and financial audit of the budget of the Central Bank of Lebanon to assess its assets and liabilities.
The failure to provide all the information on the accounts of the Lebanese Central Bank prevented Álvarez & Marsal from controlling the circumstances of the collapse of the banking and financial system that caused the destruction of the economy.
Three sources familiar with the matter previously claimed that Alvarez & Marsal, a restructuring consultancy, has not yet received all the information it requested to conduct an audit of the Central Bank of Lebanon accounts.
Lebanon began talks with the IMF in May, but stalled in July amid disagreements between the government, political parties and banks over the size of losses in the banking sector, the main contributor to financing huge public debt.
A reform map drawn up by France calls for the implementation of an IMF-backed capital movement law, initiating a central bank audit and launching reforms in the electricity sector.
The Finance Ministry said at the time that the first step would be to present Alvarez “a preliminary list of required information from the Banque du Liban” to the Finance Minister in the resigned interim government, Ghazi Wazni.
However, the crisis soon emerged with signs of financial audit obstruction, as experts point to Hezbollah’s role in trying to divert attention by directing public opinion sometimes towards banks and the Hariri era, while revealing the main role of the party in this crisis.
The circles indicate that in addition to the Western position towards him as a consequence of its regional policies and its dependence on the Iranian agenda, which prevents the international community from reaching out to Lebanon, Hezbollah is today one of the most prominent people involved in the spread. of the epidemic of corruption and waste.
Under the weight of a mountain of debt, Lebanon’s financial system faltered in 2019 and banks prevented their clients from obtaining their deposits as the local currency began to lose value.
This year, Lebanon defaulted on its sovereign debt for the first time. The crisis was exacerbated by the powerful explosion that occurred last August in the port of Beirut, destroying much of the city.
