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The report notes that “international donors to Lebanon are calling for criminal scrutiny,” noting that “President Michel Aoun makes” the matter “a personal matter, and Hassan Diab’s government, which launched the project in March, continues supporting him despite his resignation.
The journalist Barth highlights that the criminal audit of the Banque du Liban is an essential component of the economic rescue of the country, considering that “the most dangerous issue is that the audit will not go well.
The report highlights that, like “France, Western and Arab countries, which have continued to rescue Lebanon for the past twenty years, refuse to draw their checkbooks until the country signs an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). , which requires the latter, who has negotiated The government is with him, in vain, in the spring, a series of reforms, including an audit of the Banque du Liban.
The report continued: “To finance the budget deficit and keep the Lebanese pound peg to the dollar, the Banque du Liban resorted to unconventional practices that were described as ‘financial engineering’, a system designed to absorb dollar deposits from commercial banks, at a very high interest rate, which was called by French President Emmanuel Macron, in itself a “Ponzi scheme.”
As journalist Bart pointed out, “Before the acceleration of the collapse of the banking sector, these arrangements made a fortune for bank shareholders, including many politicians, Bank Med and its main pillar, Saad Hariri, was one of the main beneficiaries in 2016 alone. Lebanon provides Lebanese financial institutions with $ 5 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund, equivalent to 10% of the country’s GDP, without any compensation to the state.
The report addressed what was revealed by a report made by EY and Deloitte in 2018, and Le Monde obtained a copy of it, on another “problem”, which is that “auditors are not authorized to carry out an inventory of gold stocks of BDL, valued at 10 billion pounds. ” Sterling in December 2018 (5.5 billion euros), and that there is a suspicious increase in its assets, in the range of 6 billion dollars, based on questionable accounting practices. “
Regarding the criminal audit, Salameh stated that “the Banque du Liban cooperated with Álvarez and Marsal.”
According to the report, one of the “most important obstacles to the audit is the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, who obstructed the nomination of the first auditing firm, the American Kroll Company, by suggesting that it is linked to Israel.”
The second obstacle to criminal scrutiny, according to the report, is “Prime Minister Saad Hariri, due to his closeness to Salameh.”
What highlights the importance of this report is that it was reported in the international press.