Riad Salameh, the Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, stated that he is a scapegoat, in response to the corruption allegations facing him, and confirmed that he will not resign under pressure.
Salameh mentioned that Alvarez & Marsal withdrew from the forensic audit of the Central Bank of Lebanon due to the bank's refusal to deliver more than 100 documents. He continued, stating that he has never been against the forensic audit, and pointed out that the central bank provided the auditing company with extensive files, but there was a legal obstacle regarding the delivery of government and banking documents. This obstacle was removed after the law lifting banking secrecy on Lebanese state accounts was passed. Salameh said, "After solutions to the legal obstacles were found, we informed the government that all accounts are now at its disposal." He added that the central bank pumped about $13 billion into the banking sector, considering that the main reason for the liquidity shortage is the country's high imports from 2017 to 2019, which amounted to about $65 billion.
