– Michel Kanbour
At a very delicate period, both financially and politically, the Ministry of Energy and Water initiated an unprecedented confrontation with Fawzi Mashallab, a considered corruption whistleblower. The Ministry issued a statement accusing him of “disturbing national economic security” and “threatening social stability,” due to his communication with the American correspondent bank JP Morgan, through which credits for fuel imports are made.
But the facts reveal that the essence of the issue has nothing to do with “national security” or “social stability,” but rather with a more sensitive file, which is the international financial audit that has begun to approach fuel shipments, and the possible cessation or suspension of payment operations that may result from that.
In this context, Fawzi Mashallab did not communicate with the correspondent bank with the aim of escalation or “disrupting the state,” but rather after he faced the inability of official institutions to implement the terms and conditions books, especially with regard to non-payment if it turned out that the oil was of Russian origin or that its documents were incomplete.
Precisely from here, the crisis began to take a different turn. After the correspondent bank, JP Morgan, received a letter from Meshlab stressing the necessity of adhering to the compliance standards as stipulated in the book of conditions, and that the responsibility does not fall on the Bank of Lebanon alone but also includes the bank that confirms the accreditation (JP Morgan in our case), the bank began, in accordance with the data, to tighten the verification procedures around the CAN KA tanker until the supplying company is able to prove the authenticity of the origin.
It should be noted that before Meshlab’s letter, the same bank had examined another tanker load that had arrived weeks earlier at the Ministry of Energy, without any correspondence from Meshlab.
But this development was not met with clear responses from the Ministry of Energy. Instead of dealing with the supervisory process as a normal procedure imposed by any correspondent banking entity on a country already suffering from a crisis of financial confidence, the ministry chose to escalate, as if the problem was not a lack of documents or weak commitment, but rather who demanded verification.
Therefore, the question becomes a legitimate question: Why is Energy Secretary Joe Elsadi afraid of JP Morgan’s verification procedures? It is assumed that he is keen on continuing imports and protecting the sector. He should be the first to defend transparency and provide the required documents, and not the first to attack those who demand them.
But instead of submitting documents and proving compliance with the terms and conditions book, the case was quickly pushed towards a political track, then transferred to the Council of Ministers, before taking a more dangerous turn with its transfer to a security track and Meshalab being summoned before the Intelligence Directorate.
Here the fundamental question arises: How did the request for verification before payment turn into a “threat to national economic security”? Is the state required to pay without verification and without documents, and then later bear legal and financial consequences that may put Lebanon facing greater crises?
The most dangerous thing in this file is not only the media escalation, but rather its transformation from a regulatory and financial issue into a security issue. Instead of addressing the causes of international extremism or completing the required requirements, they went after those who demanded verification, as if the problem was the warning and not the defect.
In addition, the ministry’s statement goes beyond the accusation, as it claims that Meshlab caused companies to decline in response or hesitation in dealing with the ministry. However, this claim in turn raises a direct question: Are companies now refusing to apply because someone “wrote a bank,” or because they fear verification and realize that any incomplete shipment will be discovered?
If “serious” companies are confident of the integrity of their papers and the origin of their goods, why are they afraid of verification? Why does it consider the presence of legal and banking supervision to be an obstacle to its work? A company with complete documentation does not run away from compliance, but rather treats it as a normal procedure. As for the fear of verification, it in itself is an indication that the problem is not with the corruption whistleblower, but rather in an environment that wants to continue working with the old mechanisms: pay first… and ask later.
The claim that Meshlab is “terrorizing companies” is also incorrect, as more than 15 oil and diesel gas tankers have been imported in recent months, and Meshlab did not provide any information about them because the origin is known and not forged. All he provided was 3 pieces of information about fuel oil tankers, all of which were proven to be true.
In conclusion, introducing the security services to a financial-regulatory file with this sensitivity cannot be considered a normal procedure. When oversight turns into suspicion, and when the whistleblower becomes the one summoned, not the decision-makers, this is a path that puts the state on a dangerous path, the name of which is intimidating votes instead of correcting the course.
Hence, the issue is no longer linked to the person of Fawzi Meshalab, but rather has become a test of the nature of state administration: Is oversight protected and verification maintained before payment, or is pressure used to silence those who demand it? Or will matters reach the point of intervention by the US Treasury and the European Union to protect a corruption whistleblower, in a file related to bypassing international sanctions on Russian oil?
