Parents of Lebanese students abroad demonstrate in front of the French Embassy in Beirut in May 2021. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — President Michel Aoun on Friday sent back to Parliament amendments to a law that would keep allowing the parents of students studying abroad to transfer dollars to their children at the official exchange rate.
Here’s what we know:
• Parliament approved on Dec. 7, 2021 amendments to a law that stipulated that commercial banks must allow account holders to transfer up to $10,000 at the official rate of LL1,515 to the US dollar to cover the tuition fees and living expenses of students who left Lebanon to study abroad before 2020. Before being amended, the law only allowed these transfers during the 2020-21 academic year. The amendment to this law, once signed, would make it applicable to all future academic years, as long as students left before 2020.
• According to Aoun’s decision, the president decided to send back the law because the law opposes equity for all Lebanese citizens by allowing some to transfer money abroad while others cannot.
• Aoun also claimed that the law includes people with no bank accounts in Lebanon to benefit from the law, something Aoun opposes.
• The president also indicated that he opposes the law because, he claims, it excludes students who began studying abroad in the school years 2020-21 and 2021-22.
• Prime Minister Najib Mikati who visited Aoun Friday afternoon, also signed Aoun’s decision to send back the law.