Beirut – The new governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon promised Friday that the institution will fight against money laundering and terrorism financing and will work independently of political intervention.
Karim SouaidThat he was talking after officially assuming the position in Beirut, he added that he will work to restructure the banking sector, the public debt and return money to the depositors.
The economy of Lebanon has witnessed its worst crisis in its modern history since 2019 and the State must implement reforms demanded by the international community. Such reforms are necessary to unlock international aid, and in addition to that, the 14 -month war of Israel with Hezbollah that caused what the World Bank estimates It was $ 11 billion in economic damage and losses.
The crisis of Lebanon is based on decades of corruption by the political and financial leaders of the country who exhausted state resources and finally led to a race in the banks in 2019 after people who have lost access to their deposits. Since then, the situation has worsened with Covid-19, the huge Beirut Port explosion in August 2020 and the Israel-Hezbollah War.
Since the historic Meltdown began the Lebanon has been executing in an cash economy and in October, the financial action force based in Paris, or Fatf, an international guard dog against money laundering, placed the Lebanon in its “gray list.”
“We will work on the implementation of international laws in addition to fighting money laundering and support for terrorism,” Souaid said. The former asset manager added that banks in Lebanon should be recapitized pumping new money and those who cannot and do not want to merge with other lenders. He said the priority will be to return deposits that begin with people who have small accounts. He said that the return of the deposits should be the responsibility of the banks, the Central Bank and the State.
Souaid said the Central Bank will study all economic recovery plans presented by previous governments to help the small nation out of the crisis.
Wassim Mansouri, who had been acting in the governor of the Central Bank since July 2023, said that the reserves of the Central Bank stood at 10,727 billion at the end of March.
Souaid succeeds Riad SalamehThe former 30 -year -old governor, whose term ended with several cases of international corruption presented against him and for embezzlement and other financial crimes. Salameh was appointed in 1993, when Lebanon was fighting to recover after a 15 -year civil war.
