Listen to the article
Things will not be the same after July 31st, the date on which Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh’s mandate will end. It suffices for an observer to walk among random people and hear them wonder about what will happen next.
The public still does not know if the local currency will be devaluated further or if Sayrafa will remain. There are still no answers to these questions, as even the people in power are oblivious to what might transpire. In fact, the abnormality of the situation in Lebanon was created by the very proponents of the presidential vacuum and the refusal of Parliament and the caretaker government to take any decision, for fear of being held accountable.
Now, all eyes are on the Central Bank’s vice governors: it seems that the people in power wish to hold them responsible for all the past years’ woes and turn them into scapegoats. That is why the Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, is delaying the issuance of the legal document that proves that the government is still being funded using the State’s reserves, estimated at 9.4 billion dollars.
Both the government and Parliament are paralyzed and unable to implement reforms. In fact, this has been the case even before the presidential vacuum as it goes all the way back to the start of the crisis. This is precisely what the forces in charge—Hezbollah and its allies—want. That is why some are still clinging to the subsidies that siphoned over 12 billion dollars from the BDL’s reserves, mostly benefitting the smugglers linked to the axis of resistance who financed the activities of all organizations linked to it for years.
These same parties are the ones standing in the way of any agreement with the International Monetary Fund, given the fact that they wish to keep funding the State using the reserves—including salaries and wages paid to civil servants. Needless to say, these sides are bent on funding their public sector cronies even further, to drain whatever remains of the Central Bank’s reserves. Also, it is a secret to none that these same forces have long refused to reform the sector, as this would mean the elimination of the people they placed in key positions.
The information also indicates that the resistance forces are loitering as they try to capitalize on oil and gas revenues, should a trade route be discovered. In fact, they endeavor to control this particular sector through companies they have established, and their attempts to link the sovereign fund where these revenues are deposited to the institutions they have seized, including the Ministry of Finance.
Given all of the above, financial experts fear an even bigger “planned” decline that would give some parties more control over what is left of the State’s resources and returns, a crisis that would give the axis of resistance and its allies more financial leeway to siphon billions more.
