Is the House of Representatives Reviving Criminal Scrutiny? The state of Riad Salameh wins!

As the most powerful man in the republic, Riad Salameh managed to make his point. He did not care about the opinion of the Commission on Consultation and Legislation, nor the books he received from the Prime Minister and the Ministries of Finance and Justice. As for him, the Cash and Credit Law, in its article 151, prohibits him from disclosing professional secrecy and any other speech that does not concern him. Consequently, the last day of the deadline for delivering the information to the Álvarez & Marsal company passed without the Ministry of Finance receiving from the Central Bank any of the documents that it re-requested.

According to the information, a company delegation will meet today with the Minister of Finance to discuss the next step, amid the expectation that he will announce his inability to implement the contract signed with the Ministry, without the required documents. This may be immediate, or it may be delayed for days, but nothing will change in the deeds that the Banque du Liban imposed on all parties.
The efforts of the last hours seemed closer to “God bear witness to what I have achieved”, which is mentioned verbatim in the statement of the prime minister. Each party sought to lift its liability for an audit failure. Presidential sources previously blamed the Ministry of Finance for not taking into account all the consultant’s notes in the contract signed with the company. Sources from the Ministry of Finance confirmed that they had reached an understanding with the Presidency of the Republic on all matters except the inclusion of the Egmont Group in the contract, indicating that what overthrew this contract was not its content, but the political protection of the that the Governor of the Banque du Liban enjoys, and that as long as it exists he can overthrow any He tries to fix. The sources of the Presidency of the Government did not distance themselves from the opinion of the Presidency of the Republic, indicating that the Ministry of Finance refused to fully accept the opinion of the Advisory Commission, but rather opened the door to the Banque du Liban by not follow the advice, which confirmed that the bank is obliged to implement the Cabinet decision in its capacity as a state bank, and that secrecy does not. It includes the audit of your accounts and operations.

It no longer matters where the responsibility lies. However, in the last two days, all situations indicated that their owners were surprised by the result of the criminal audit, ignoring that this fate was expected from the moment the contract was signed: Riad Salameh would not cooperate with the auditing company , under the pretext of Lebanese laws, especially article 151 of the Money and Credit Code (Any person who belongs or has belonged to the Central Bank, whatever their character, must hide the secrecy established by the law of September 3, 1956 …). Rekindling the debate again will not change reality. The state of Riad Salameh is even stronger than the state. Therefore, it was clear that all the official books sent to the Banque du Liban failed to dissuade it from its decision, nor did the decisive opinion of the advisory body help to amend its position. In this way, it has managed to bypass all constitutional and legal institutions, from the Presidency of the Republic to the Presidency of the Government and the Ministries of Finance and Justice, benefiting from the non-institutional support provided by those who fear criminal scrutiny.
The latest books, which were sent by the Ministry of Finance to the Central Bank yesterday afternoon, include the letter from the Cabinet Presidency No. 2172 / M, in which work is requested according to the opinion of the Legislation and Consultation Commission , and attached to the letter from the Minister of Justice to the Presidency of the Government (Bank secrecy does not apply to State accounts and Banque du Liban accounts). The BDL responded with more disdain. Bank sources leaked, via MTV, that the Central Council, which meets regularly on Wednesday, “will discuss different opinions on criminal scrutiny, as well as proposals”! The same sources did not hesitate to point out that “the Central Bank has delivered all its accounts to the Criminal Audit Company through the Ministry of Finance”, noting that the Presidency of the Government itself announced that “the company has only delivered 42% of these files, citing the bank secrecy law ”.
Faced with the total deficit of state institutions due to the power of Salame, the prime minister could only warn of the danger of failing the audit. He said that any reform other than the forensic audit at the Banque du Liban would be a false reform to cover the continuation of the approach that brought the country to its financial level. He stressed that this would prevent the Lebanese from knowing the true background of the disappearance of their deposits, the reasons for the financial collapse and the deliberate manipulation of the price of the national currency.

The Banque du Liban did not pay attention to all the correspondence asking it to adhere to the opinion of the Legislative Council.

As a result, if Salameh had won at this stage, under the guise of the law, then the options were narrowed to the limits, so that only one option would be useful, according to high-level government sources. The approval of a law that explicitly refers to “preventing workers in public administrations and institutions from invoking bank secrecy or professional secrecy in the event of criminal scrutiny” is the last chance to save the audit. According to the information, and after the failure of the attempts to push Salameh to adopt the interpretation of the banking secrecy of the Legislative Council, it is expected that the presidency of the republic, and behind it the powerful Lebanese bloc, will move to Plan B, that is, to present a bill in this regard. This moves the dispute from a legal dispute to a political one, revealing the truth about the positions of the parliamentary blocs on criminal scrutiny. In the House of Representatives the projection will be clearer. Who supports reform and the fight against corruption, and who wants to take the country to the bottom of the abyss. Then those who reject the reform will be known by name. This may constitute a serious opportunity to pass the law that liberalizes criminal scrutiny, after it has become, according to Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm, and according to the head of the Administration and Justice Committee, George Adwan, in a passage Mandatory for international aid.