(Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — The employees of Banque du Liban have announced that they will go on a one-day strike on Tuesday at the call of their union, whose general assembly met on Monday in Beirut, to protest the "legal proceedings and accusations" that target the central bank and its staff, the representative of BDL’s union confirmed to L’Orient Today.
Here’s what we know:
• BDL will in principle be closed, which means that operations requiring validation of its services will be suspended for 24 hours. This will include: transfers abroad, check clearing and exchange operations at BDL’s Sayrafa platform rate.
• In a statement released by BDL’s union on Monday, the union said that the strike will represent a “warning” and called on BDL’s employees to gather on Tuesday at 11 a.m. in the courtyard of the bank’s headquarters in Beirut in order to call on officials to act to avoid an amplification of the issue.
• The Association of Banks in Lebanon also met on Monday to decide whether or not banks should also go on a strike in solidarity with BDL’s employees. While no official statement was issued, sources close to the organization assured that bank branches will not be closing their doors tomorrow.
• Mount Lebanon Public Prosecutor Ghada Aoun filed a complaint against BDL Governor Riad Salameh on Thursday, a day after she accompanied a raid by State Security conducted on his home in Rabieh.
Aoun also filed complaints against several other parties — four former central bank deputy governors, BDL employees, international consulting firm Deloitte, which audited BDL in 2018, and former Finance Ministry director Alain Bifani. The complaint was filed to Mount Lebanon lead investigating judge Nicolas Mansour.
• The accusations leveled at Salameh, who has headed BDL since 1993, include malpractice, concealing BDL losses and breach of trust to those involved. Contrary to certain local media reports, no arrest warrant has been issued, as only the investigating judge can take such action.
• According to a letter sent by the Swiss attorney general to Lebanese officials and which was seen by Reuters in February, the Salameh brothers illegally took, sometime between 2002 and 2015, more than $300 million in commissions off the sale of BDL financial securities, benefitting off public funds.
• The BDL chief and his brother Raja Salameh are also part of a judicial investigation into Forry Associates Ltd, the latter being an economic beneficiary of the company, in which they are accused of embezzlement, fraud, money laundering, illicit enrichment and tax evasion.