Aoun emphasizes the need for a government commitment to conduct a forensic financial audit of BDL’s accounts

Beirut: Lebanese President General Michel Aoun stressed on Thursday the need for the government to carry out a financial forensic audit of the Bank of Lebanon accounts.

Aoun said, during his presidency of a meeting before noon Thursday at the Baabda Palace, in the presence of Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni and the head of Álvarez and Marsal’s forensic audit team, James Daniel, that it is an important step in the field of reforms necessary to address the financial and economic conditions of the country.

During the meeting, he presented the “circumstances that accompanied the implementation of the decision in the audit process”, which prevented the company “Alvarez y Misal” from carrying out the criminal and financial audit of the accounts of Banque du Liban.

During the meeting, it was decided to “extend the time required to deliver the necessary documents to Álvarez and Marsal” for an additional three months, provided that some documents that have not yet been delivered are delivered during the specified period.

Minister Wazni confirmed, in an interview with the media after the end of the meeting, that “according to the signed contract, the deadline for delivering documents to Álvarez and Messal had to expire on Tuesday so that the company could carry out its audit mission .

“As long as the company considers that the documents that have been collected are insufficient and do not allow it to carry out the task that has been entrusted to it, this meeting was with President Aoun, which resulted in an extension of the term to three months, during which the Lebanese government tries to deliver the documents, which leads the company to perform the tasks it has. Stipulated in the contract regarding criminal audit.

Minister Wazni announced that the Banque du Liban “has created a government team to facilitate affairs and protect company documents, and the atmosphere was positive.”

It is noteworthy that the Council of Ministers had agreed on July 21 to seek the assistance of the company “Alvarez y Marsal” to carry out the task of criminal investigation at the Banque du Liban.

However, the Banque du Liban only gave the company 42 percent of the documents and information it needs to initiate the criminal audit at the bank, due to the bank secrecy law adopted in Lebanon.

(Dpa)