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The President of the Lebanese Republic, Michel Aoun, sent a letter to Parliament urging it to cooperate to achieve the criminal financial audit
Aoun’s message came after the specialized company withdrew last week because it did not obtain enough documents from the Central Bank, which is armed with the bank secrecy law.
In his message, Aoun said: “Cooperate with the executive authority to allow the state to carry out forensic accounting audits of the Bank of Lebanon accounts, and withdraw the audits of all public facilities in the state to achieve reform. and desired aid programs. “
He stressed that “the criminal audit is necessary so that Lebanon does not become one of the failed countries in the eyes of the international community, and the continued refraining from delivering documents to the audit firm caused its inability to start its mission and then terminate the contract. ”
He described the company’s withdrawal as a setback, saying: “What happened was a serious setback for the logic of the state, the interests of the Lebanese people, and the forensic accounting audit became a prerequisite for the state’s negotiation with the International Monetary Fund, and the loss of confidence in the state and its authorities and institutions will not be limited to the interior, but will become a necessity for the international community. ”
He stressed that “the reform is an integral whole and synonymous with political stability and security, and I will not settle for succumbing to any pressure to abandon it or reduce its demands.”
The constitutional position
Constitutionally, Dr. Paul Morcos, the legal expert and president of the Justice Human Rights Foundation, told Al-Ain Al-Akhbar that this letter has more moral than mandatory effects. ” He explains, “The President of the Republic does not oblige Parliament, and more than one president has been doing so before that, in accordance with article 35 of the Constitution, which reserves the right to send the messages required by necessity to Parliament. ”. This usually occurs when there is a critical event or a necessary matter in which the president urges Parliament to take certain measures in the interest of the supreme state, in the framework of the cooperation of the authorities, but on the other hand due to the separation of powers. that you cannot compel. Rather, his call is to take steps, for example, legislative steps in basic matters in the interest of the country “, and reiterates that” the message is symbolic and can be used by any president of the republic to remove responsibility and say that he tried , sought, demanded and appealed “.
From here, political sources familiar with the negotiations suggested to “Al-Ain Al-Akhbariya” that, based on this issue, Aoun’s main objective of this message could be to urge Parliament to pass laws that remove any obstacles to the criminal scrutiny, as happened with the specialized company.
The company “Álvarez y Misal” of criminal financial auditing informed Lebanon last week that it had terminated the contract to audit the Central Bank’s accounts, because it did not obtain the required documents, as announced by the Presidency of the Republic.
The termination of the contract came despite the announcement of the finance minister in the interim government, Ghazi Wazni, earlier this month, to extend the deadline given to the Banque du Liban to deliver its data by three months, after it do so during the period specified in the contract under the pretext of the bank secrecy law.
With accusations to the Governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, for not receiving the documents, the bank had issued a statement about three weeks ago announcing that it had turned over all its accounts in accordance with the rules to the Minister of Finance. She said the state could “request a detailed status of all your accounts and then hand them over to authorities that She believes is appropriate to inform her of that, ‘what’ would prevent the Banque du Liban from violating legally binding secrecy laws.
On the other hand, the French Press Agency reported, according to a source from the bank, stating that the latter delivered only 42 percent of the required documents to the company.
With Salameh armed with the bank secrecy law, many officials hold Salameh responsible for the deterioration of the exchange rate of the pound against the dollar, as a result of the monetary policies he adopted over the last few years, while Salameh’s response was that “He financed the state but did not spend the money.”
Since 2019, Lebanon has witnessed an economic collapse and a crisis that is open to all possibilities, with the value of the lira collapsing to an unprecedented level, while the state failed last March in the payment of your external debts. Although the government began negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, it came back and stopped after a dispute between Lebanese negotiators representing the government and the Bank of Lebanon over their estimates of losses.
