Member of Parliament Ibrahim Mneimneh (Credit: Joao Sousa/OLJ)
BEIRUT — MP Ibrahim Mneimneh commented on the statement of the board of directors of the Association of Banks in Lebanon, which called for resorting to the future resources of the Lebanese state to contribute to addressing the banking crisis.
Here’s what we know:
• Mneimneh stated that the Lebanese state's assets are supposed to be the right of the general Lebanese public, and exist to serve the financial development of the entire economy, to offer social protection networks and compensation and combat the unemployment the country is facing.
• The basic rule remains to “keep these resources — which belong to all the Lebanese, at the service of society as a whole, and the severe losses that befallen it, and not to allocate them to deal with the losses of the financial sector, and with the aim of exempting bank owners from bearing their share of losses.
• Following ABL’s statement on Tuesday, the head of Bankmed, Michel Accad, tweeted, saying “the ABL has issued another irrelevant statement, approved by a majority of its members, restating their existing position that ‘the State has sufficient resources' to cover the gap. Actually, it doesn’t, and this is the problem.”
• Accad also said, “While the state, through all its institutions, bears the primary responsibility for the crisis, it is unreasonable to expect it to cover the full gap.”
• He continued, “I believe the state should participate in the loss, but only up to its capacity, and without mortgaging future generations.”
• Mneimneh addressed ABL, saying "the boards of directors and shareholders should bear their share of the losses according to the law, and include a return to reversing the outrageous profits that were achieved at the expense of public money in the stage of financial engineering.”
• He expressed his “surprise” at the association's rush to demand “harm to public money and the revenues of public utilities, which are supposed to remain the property of all Lebanese.”