Toufic Gaspard: 'The banks are robbing the Lebanese every day'

In August 2017, when Banque du Liban was still considered sacrosanct, he authored a study that would prove as controversial as it was prophetic: “Lebanon is facing a situation ... that could turn into a full-fledged crisis that affects the exchange rate and the banking sector, unless appropriate actions are swiftly implemented,” he wrote.

Five years later, while the authorities have still done nothing to remedy the consequences of the disaster, economist Toufic Gaspard — who worked with BDL in the 1980s and later with the IMF — published a new study for the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, titled "To bank depositors in Lebanon (confronting banks, Banque du Liban, and the government)” in which he returns to the roots of the collapse which, in his opinion, remain poorly understood.

A member of the National Council to End the Iranian Occupation, Gaspard considers the crisis to be inseparable from issues of sovereignty.