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The company withdrew on the pretext that it did not obtain the information and documents necessary for the audit (France Press)
The Lebanese Minister of Finance in the interim government, Ghazi Wazni, informed the President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, that he received a letter from the company “Álvarez y Marsal” on Friday to terminate the agreement signed with the Ministry of Finance to the forensic accounting audit, because “the company did not obtain the information and documents necessary to start the implementation Its mission, and its uncertainty about access to such information, even if it was granted an additional three months to deliver the documents necessary for the criminal audit in the accounts of the Banque du Liban.
Minister Wazni explained: “The President of the Republic informed him that this new matter definitely requires taking the appropriate measures that are required by the interests of Lebanon.”
There were significant differences regarding the forensic audit, which reached the point of a verbal exchange between the head of the Finance and Budget Committee, Deputy Ibrahim Kanaan, and the Minister of Justice of the interim government, Marie Claude Negm, while the Governor of the Central Bank, Riad Salameh, refused to hand over all the data to the company under the pretext of bank secrecy and the Monetary and Credit Law. .
The Justice Minister said in a tweet on her account via “Twitter” that the criminal audit does not need new laws, and asked President Michel Aoun and Acting Prime Minister Hassan Diab to send a letter to the Banque du Liban government to deliver the required documents and information.
For his part, the head of the Finance and Budget Commission, deputy Ibrahim Kanaan, said that the contract with the Criminal Audit Society is not enforceable. He added in a statement: “We asked the representatives of the Banque du Liban about this file and it was clear to us that, from day one, everyone knew that this contract The site with” Alvarez “is subject to Lebanese laws, which do not allow that the company has access to all accounts, due to bank secrecy.
Earlier, Diab announced that “the Central Bank has only handed over 42 percent of the files to the auditing company,” warning against trying to remove it, to prevent the Lebanese from knowing the truth about the background of the disappearance of their deposits, the reasons for financial collapse and deliberate manipulation of the price of the national currency.
On November 5, the Minister of Finance announced a three-month extension of the deadline to present all the data required for a criminal audit on the Central Bank, since the latter withheld the information required from the company to start the audit, which is a basic requirement for external financial aid, to help Lebanon. Faced with the financial collapse.
The head of the Administration and Justice Committee, Representative George Adwan, said that the criminal audit of the decision made by the government does not contain any legal ambiguity and does not need to amend the law or new laws, indicating that the Governor of the Banque du Liban hides behind the bank secrecy that he is not present in the criminal audit so as not to be informed. The Lebanese are aware of the reasons that led the financial situation to what it is, and he is not alone, but also all the politicians who “covered up”.
Adwan addressed the Lebanese saying: “If there is no criminal audit,” forget about your deposits “, and you should forget any real financial economic plan, and forget the help of friendly countries, and without this help we cannot improve the economic situation.
The contract with the auditing company provides for the BDL to deliver the requested documents and information to the company, in order to launch the forensic audit workshop. Lawyer Haitham Ezzo told Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed that the criminal audit of the accounts of the Central Bank aims to examine all financial transactions of the Central Bank, examining the data, information and documents related to them, in order to find out if there is financial waste and corruption regarding them, especially in light of the subsequent large Central Bank losses, which were estimated at $ 60 billion, under the resigned government reform plan.
The tax attorney attributes the fact that the governor of the Central Bank justified his aforementioned reluctance with flimsy pretexts, as a result of the bank secrecy that prevents it, as he stated, but these flimsy accusations are countered by legal arguments that nullify them completely, that is, that the secrecy observed in Lebanese law does not apply to state accounts. And the Bank of Lebanon does not deal with public money, mainly because the state itself is the one that requested the investigation of these accounts, so it implicitly removed the bank secrecy, especially since these funds deposited in the accounts of the Central Bank are already exposed and non-confidential in accordance with the Right to Information Law, stating: Salameh’s reluctance to provide the company with the required documents is convincing evidence of his involvement in the waste of public money in light of his lack of transparency and his reluctance to participate in the cooperation would be required with the company in charge of auditing the accounts of the bank he directs.
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