Banque du Liban Governor Riad Salamé responded to Prime Minister Hassan Diab by reviewing figures indicating that the central bank does not bear responsibility for the monetary and financial crisis, but rather government performance, state expenditures and the payment of more than $4 billion on imports of unknown destination.
Salamé explained that "the central bank financed the state, but it is not the one who disbursed the money, and here we must know how it was disbursed. The state and the constitutional and administrative institutions have the task of revealing how to spend, and when the central bank and the governor are especially responsible for financing and controlling it, without having powers to implement oversight, this is an element of mobilization against the bank and the governor."
He added: "We are not the only ones who financed the state, but it was also financed by the banking sector, international institutions and global money houses by purchasing Eurobonds and successive Paris conferences, all of this in exchange for promises of reform that were not translated for political reasons, and we found voids in the reins of the Presidency of the Government and the Presidency of the Republic and disrupt the work of the Parliament. I don’t know if there is a will for the reforms that the central bank was calling for.” Salameh pointed out that "we have contributed to reducing the cost of public debt by lending the state with lower interest rates, sometimes reaching 1%, and we have another task to finance the private sector with acceptable benefits, and this creates losses for the Bank of Lebanon."
Source (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Edited)
