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The objective of the financial audit is to ensure the accuracy of the financial statements in accordance with international accounting standards by collecting material evidence that gives credibility to the financial statements. According to the American Accounting Association (AAA): “a systematic and objective process for obtaining and evaluating evidence about economic facts and events in order to verify the degree of congruence between these facts and the specific meanings and the communication of results to the information users interested in this verification ”. As for the forensic audit, it combines financial audit and criminal investigation to identify criminal financial activity and make those responsible known through material accounting evidence that cannot be questioned.
Since the October 17 movements, the entire Lebanese people have been waiting to expose the system of corruption and even impose the harshest penalties for the corrupt who brought the country and its people to this lowest level of collapse at all levels. The Lebanese have always hoped for joyous operational news to flow in this framework that would restore some of the hope and restore the lost confidence in everything the authority issues. Criminal scrutiny could be one of the ships on which the Lebanese pin their hopes of survival. After a long wait, the contract was signed with the international company “Alvarez & Marsal”, and according to what was nominated for the contract -according to the report of the National Media Corporation LBCI- there are many gaps that must be addressed, perhaps the most important of which is the impossibility of auditing the accounts of the Banque du Liban and denying the company access to the information. Consequently, the forensic audit becomes useless when examining the official financial statements, discovering defects in them and prosecuting the perpetrators of serious crimes against the Lebanese people. I failed to understand the importance of the impartiality of the BDL from the criminal scrutiny, on the basis of which we can not only go after criminals, but also reveal the real sources of public finances and financial waste and suggest plans that can be presented to the Monetary Fund International. The criminal scrutiny of the Banque du Liban settles the debate between the political authority, on the one hand, and the Bank of Lebanon and the Association of Banks, on the other, on the real figures of the financial deficit, which has always provoked controversial material on the economic and financial approaches to the plans drawn up by each party, and thus this national economic solidarity is produced and revived to face the crisis. Of the desired confidence.
Many obstacles will get in the way of significant criminal audit activity. These obstacles start with Lebanese laws (from the bank secrecy law to the cash and credit law) to reach the Lebanese judiciary and its independence to prosecute and prosecute criminals against the Lebanese people. Confidence in the Lebanese judiciary is still lost in the corridors of internal and sectarian rules and balances of the game, and this trust has increasingly been ruined by the bombing of the Beirut port and the way the judiciary handles the case, not to mention dozens, if not transfer hundreds of cases that have been blown away by the politicized judiciary.
It appears that the intentions of the signed contract are improper, which excluded the “Egmont” group from the membership of the official Lebanese committee to monitor the degree of compliance by “Álvarez” with the mandatory standards that govern his work, as recommended by the Commission for Legislation and Consultation. The existence of the Egmont Group gives it credibility in the pursuit of money laundering. It is an international forum for FIU, established in 1995 and aims to improve the activities of its members in the field of the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.
The Álvarez company, according to the contract, will issue a preliminary and not final report within a period of 10 weeks, and any new report it issues will cost the state treasury more financial burdens, which means that the costs of the audit will exceed two million 220 thousand dollars, so can the Lebanese state, which announced that it will stop paying its debts? Which foreign exchange reserves have reached the red line, support these burdens, and in return cannot continue to support some essential commodities?
The main objective of the forensic audit is to discover the operations of embezzlement, forgery, looting of public money, recovery of stolen funds and launderers and to hold criminals responsible, based on conclusive physical account evidence, except in Lebanon, the criminal audit is It has put on a continuous method because the international community is pushing in this direction to release Sidr’s money and get Support for the International Monetary Fund. And if things continue with the same mentality, criminal scrutiny will not reach its goal, which is to overthrow the great heads of corruption and the arms of the deep state, and it seems that the red lines of political and sectarian entities will not be crossed. . Linking all the steps of the forensic audit exclusively with the approval of the Ministry of Finance, which is – and will continue to be – in the hands of a political team, will make the investigation and its outcome dependent on this team. Delaying the signing of the contract and its initiation in this way will empty the investigation of its content and eliminate it from its cradle.
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