معالجة العجز المالي عبر المساس بالودائع

Written by “Nidaa Al-Watan”: The final draft, announced on December 20, prioritizes the International Monetary Fund and the state and preserving the assets of the Banque du Liban at the expense of compensating the rights of depositors, who will bear significant losses. Depositors in the middle and large categories are offered “tradable bonds” with unclear terms and long maturities. Depositors have already lost billions of dollars since the beginning of the crisis, and today they are being offered compensation in the form of bonds whose true value cannot be determined. Despite the reassurances of the Prime Minister, these depositors will effectively be subjected to significant deductions from their deposits. The International Monetary Fund is imposing its conditions on Lebanon, leading to the transfer of losses from the state and the Banque du Liban to depositors. This approach is unsustainable and threatens the complete collapse of the banking sector. In addition, the state’s debt of no less than $16.5 billion will not be repaid, ultimately placing the burden on depositors. The collapse in Lebanon is the result of decades of mismanagement by the state and the Banque du Liban, flawed financial policies, and misuse of public resources, which Prime Minister Nawaf Salam acknowledged by saying: “We have lived through six years of paralysis and mismanagement of the financial crisis, and this is a large part of the problem, and not the fault of the banks but the fault of the state.” However, the bill does not fairly recognize responsibilities, is vindictive towards banks, and ultimately punishes depositors. The state has a legal and moral duty to recapitalize the Banque du Liban and address the losses resulting from its policies. The state and the Banque du Liban must stop succumbing to the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and provide the necessary funds to meet their legal obligations. The Prime Minister speaks of restoring people’s rights, but this project violates the simplest of these rights: accountability and responsibility. The state and the Banque du Liban must use public assets to cover depositors’ obligations, as legal frameworks require. However, the current plan ignores this option, protecting the assets of the state and the Banque du Liban at the expense of depositors. The existence of a sustainable banking sector is a prerequisite for revitalizing the economy, creating jobs, and restoring hope. The Prime Minister says that this law will restore “social stability,” but if commercial banks disappear and depositors incur heavy losses, there will be no trust or stability. The state must adhere to its obligations stipulated in the Code of Money and Credit to rebuild trust.

And Hiyam Eid wrote in “Al-Diyar”: The fundamental and fateful question that may be raised, on the eve of the government’s approval of the “financial gap” bill, relates to the ability of this bill to be the fair “solution” to the financial crisis. The text distributed to the ministers indicates a full recovery of deposits of small depositors of less than $100,000, to be paid in installments over 4 years, provided that the larger depositors receive the same value, and that the remaining value is converted into tradable bonds without any deduction from them, to be supported by revenues and assets of the Banque du Liban, or resulting from the sale of a portion of them over 15 years. These assets include, as is well known, the properties of the “Central Bank,” such as the casino, for example, and other institutions and real estate estimated at billions of dollars. In an initial reading of the project, expert and researcher at the American University, Dr. Muhammad Fahili, tells “Al-Diyar” that the project reveals “the real points of friction between two logics, a domestic political one that tries to manage social anger through reassuring formulations or a distribution of losses that satisfies certain centers of power, and a technical-legal one that pushes towards internationally recognized rules in dealing with banking crises, especially since any deviation from them turns the law into a recipe for long judicial disputes, exacerbates distrust, and closes the door to any financing program from the International Monetary Fund or a path to restoring the minimum of banking function.” The doctor confirms that “losses cannot be distributed without determining if there are exceptional gains, or unsound practices that should be taken into account before fixing the final loss, as any law that ignores this angle asks society to believe a one-sided narrative, that everyone lost equally, while public memory says the opposite.” Regarding the role, influence, and pressure of the International Monetary Fund in the process of distributing losses, he says that “the question that must be asked in Lebanon is not about how to satisfy the International Monetary Fund, but whether we are writing a law that does not wrong people twice: once when the deposits lost their value, and once when the depositor is asked to pay before those who benefited, accumulated risks, and failed in governance pay?” Fahili concludes by asserting that “the final formula of the financial gap law must be written in the language of justice that can be defended, and with the logic of sustainability that can be verified, and must be clear, to cut off any ambiguity, so that this law does not turn into just another station in the series of distributing losses to society, especially since Lebanon can no longer tolerate gray laws, but a law that sets clear rules for the rights of depositors and the responsibilities of shareholders, banks, the state, and the central bank.”