Swiss Newspaper Exposes: Banque Du Liban Gov. Deletes 14 Pages Warning of Economic Catastrophe

By Staff, Agencies

The Swiss newspaper, Le Temps, revealed that the Banque Du Liban [Central Bank of Lebanon] and its governor, Riad Salameh, crossed out 14 pages of a report by the International Monetary Fund in 2016 warning of the catastrophe that befell Lebanon after 3 years.

The newspaper said it had obtained a document about a meeting between the IMF team headed by its representative in Lebanon Alvaro Pearce and Salameh and a number of other officials of the Lebanese Bank on April 9, 2016.

According to the document, the IMF representative began his conversation with Salameh by saying: “You are on the edge of the abyss”.

The documents prepared by the Financial Sector Assessment Program [FSAP] at the IMF showed their findings and proved that the net deficit of the Central Bank has a deficit of 4.7 billion dollars, which represents 10% of the gross domestic product.

They also pointed out that local banks do not have the necessary liquidity to face a potential crisis.

The Swiss newspaper said that this information might have allowed to reduce the tragedy that Lebanon has been going through since 2020.

The 2020 economic crisis in the country is the worst since the Lebanese war between 1975 and 1990, as poverty rate decreased from 28% to 55% in one year, and 6 million Lebanese were deprived of access to their bank accounts, amidst fuel and medicine shortages.

 Yet, “a bank and its governor succeeded in removing the basic data from the report”.