The MPs of the "Forces of Change" parliamentary bloc. (Credit: Twitter/@PaulaYacoubian)
BEIRUT — The “Forces of Change” parliamentary bloc, made up of 13 MPs, on Wednesday submitted a law to Parliament that “strengthens the protection of gold reserves at Banque du Liban, the state-owned National News Agency reported.
Here’s what we know:
• In 1986, Parliament approved a law that prohibits BDL from using the gold reserves “no matter what the nature of this usage is and its purpose be it direct or indirect” without Parliament’s approval.
• The law submitted by the 13 MPs states that its necessity stems from a lack of protection in the original 1986 law against gold being swapped for other commodities or borrowed against, or used in ways other than directly selling it.
• MP Melhem Khalaf, who is part of the “Forces of Change,” told L’Orient Today that the law they submitted clarifies the operations that BDL must not undertake other than selling which are “transferring, moving, swapping and other operations.” Khalaf also said that the law specifies that whoever does not abide by the current law will be sentenced to three to five years in jail and will be fined an amount ranging from LL500 million to LL2 billion.
• Another reason mentioned for submitting the law according to the NNA, is that “there is no reassurance on the safety of gold reserves at BDL, especially that lately there has been voices calling for the usage of this reserve to cover the huge piled-up gap in [the capital] of the banking sector.”
• Banks in Lebanon have placed de-facto capital controls on most people’s deposits since October 2019. The deposits have reportedly been lent to the Lebanese government and BDL, and the central bank is believed to have spent most of them. Citing this fact, the draft law stated that another reason for its submission was that the economic crisis “led to the dissipation of people’s deposits at banks.”
This post has been updated to clarify the proposed penalty for violating the existing law.