The Finance and Budget Committee held a session chaired by MP Ibrahim Kanaan, attended by Deputy Prime Minister Saadeh al-Shami and Finance Minister Youssef Khalil, to continue discussing amending the law on lifting banking secrecy. Attending were MPs: Ali Fayyad, Alan Aoun, Ibrahim Mneimeh, Ihab Matar, Ayoub Hamid, Jean Talouzian, Jihad al-Samad, Hassan Fadlallah, Raji Saad, Selim Aoun, Ali Hassan Khalil, Ghada Ayyub, Ghazi Zaiter, Fouad Makhzoumi, Michel Moawad, Qablan Qablan, Wadah al-Sadiq, Firas Hamdan, Mark Doue, Adnan Traboulsi, Mohammed Khawaja, Jamil Al-Sayyid, Yassin Yassin, Halima Qaqour, Adeeb Abd al-Masih, Razi al-Haj, Hadi Abu al-Hassan, Ibrahim al-Mousawi, Qassem Hashem.
Also present were: Judge Muhammad Fawaz representing the Ministry of Justice, acting Director General of the Ministry of Finance George Ma'arawi, Secretary General of the Association of Banks Dr. Fadi Khalaf, Advisor to the Association of Banks Elie Chemoun, Director of Legal Affairs at the Central Bank Pierre Kanaan, Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Depositor Rights at the Bar Association and representative of the Union of Free Trade Unions Karim Daher, Vice Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Depositor Rights at the Bar Association and appointed by the Union of Free Trade Unions to negotiate with the IMF Ali Zbeeb, Chairman of the Legislative Committee at the Bar Association and member of the Syndicate Council, and representative to the House of Representatives Abdo Lahoud.
After the session, MP Ibrahim Kanaan announced that "the Finance and Budget Committee approved the subcommittee’s draft concerning the banking secrecy law with amendments" to be later raised to the general assembly. However, this does not mean that we accepted the draft law as provided by the government; rather, we amended it. The session took a long time, as did previous sessions, due to the serious effort aimed at ensuring transparency, combating corruption, money laundering, terrorism financing, and preventing tax evasion while maintaining secrecy in matters not related to the violations mentioned in the laws previously passed, such as the law on unjust enrichment, the law establishing the National Anti-Corruption Authority, tax procedures law, and the law on combating money laundering and terrorism financing.
He noted that "the government did not send a law for the cancellation of banking secrecy but rather an amendment to this law. The Finance Committee's provisions, based on the subcommittee's report, specify the parties allowed to lift banking secrecy, and ‘not everyone who wants to lift secrecy can do so’; there are conditions and mechanisms that must be respected within the laws mentioned."
Kanaan emphasized that "the provisions set by the Finance Committee are fundamental and important and determine who is authorized to request the lifting of secrecy, such as the competent courts, the National Anti-Corruption Authority, the Special Investigation Agency, and the tax administration, all detailed in the 30 pages that were studied item by item."
He pointed out that "there are also proposed articles from the Bar Association in Beirut and the Central Bank that we have not decided on, which are required internationally and nationally. We will include them in our report to the general assembly; the report is very detailed and includes amendments to provisions that were agreed upon and require reformulation, which will take about two to three days to reach a clear draft law with its provisions, considering the two main concerns in the country today: transparency and preventing arbitrariness."
Kanaan considered it "shameful to say that the House of Representatives, especially the Finance Committee, is still discussing the budget; this statement distorts the truth. The government is delaying the approval of the budget. They promised since April 2022 to address the issue of exchange rate multiplicity. We are not asking them to unify the exchange rate but to complete a study explaining the differences in criteria and addressing the issue of the public sector's 1,500 LBP salaries while taxes and fees on the Sayrafa platform have reached 25,000, in addition to the impossibility of achieving revenue on Sayrafa amidst an economic stagnation that has reached 90%. The government also promised to establish the Recovery Fund, and the Prime Minister attended the Finance Committee and promised us to send the written project within days, but it has not arrived yet."
Kanaan indicated that he granted the government a week to finalize its vision on the exchange rate issue and submit it to the Finance Committee.
He reminded, "I am fully in favor of cooperating with the government and am not in a position to toss accusations, but you must do the required work as a government and stop distorting facts in the media. Where are the government’s promises to work with the IMF concerning the Recovery Fund? Where is the study it promised regarding the multiplicity of exchange rates to address the significant gap between expenditures and revenues reflected in the deficit? Where is the law for restructuring banks? We are not engaging in a dispute, but there are principles of work and requirements that need addressing."
