People gather outside a fortified Credit Libanais Bank in Chtaura, Lebanon, on Jan. 20, 2023. (Credit:Mohamed Azakir/File Photo/Reuters)
The Association of Banks in Lebanon on Friday announced that banks will remain open until the end of this week, extending last week’s suspension of their open-ended strike. ABL said that, by opening, it aims to “facilitate the work of institutions and individuals.” The remark comes days after Banque du Liban responded to a record lira low on the parallel market by almost doubling its Sayrafa exchange rate and increasing the amount of dollars depositors can purchase at the subsidized rate through central bank Circular No. 161. Banks reopened with heightened security measures after weeks of closure last year following a spate of occasionally violent holdups by customers seeking to access to their informally frozen foreign currency funds. Last Friday, an SGBL security guard shot and injured a depositor attempting to enter a Burj al-Barajneh branch. ABL will “re-evaluate any developments regarding the implementation of its demands,” which include the enactment of a capital control law, the abolition of banking secrecy and revisions to the lawsuits against banks. A banking source had told L’Orient Today that decisive action from the judiciary was necessary to end the strike launched on Jan. 6. Last week, Lebanon’s top prosecutor Judge Ghassan Oueidat said that unresolved dismissal requests against Mount Lebanon Public Prosecutor Ghada Aoun prevent her from continuing an investigation into purported money laundering launched last month against two banks that refused to release select officials’ account information.
Relatives of the victims of the Aug. 4, 2020 Beirut Port blast held their 31st monthly vigil on Saturday in Beirut and Paris, commemorating the tragedy that claimed more than 220 lives and injured more than 6,500 people. A collective of relatives’ victims denounced in a Saturday statement obstructionism in Lebanon’s probe into the blast and welcomed the first ruling to impute liability for the blast, issued last month by London’s Magistrates’ Court against Savaro Ltd. — a company that allegedly purchased the shipment of ammonium nitrate that detonated after years of improper storage at the Beirut port. Lead investigator in the port blast probe Judge Tarek Bitar last month indefinitely postponed the questioning of suspects after his attempt to relaunch the case after more than a year of judicial deadlock was contested by Lebanon’s top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat, who sued the investigator and ordered the release of more than a dozen suspects arrested in the blast’s immediate aftermath.
Mount Lebanon Public Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun on Thursday denied jurisdiction over a corruption complaint filed a day prior against former President Michel Aoun. The public prosecutor said that presenting the case before the judicial body responsible for trying presidents and ministers begins with chief public prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat. Lawyer, activist and anti-corruption civil society president Louay Ghandour accused the former president of embezzling $15 million donated by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 1989 — based on old revelations by Gen. Issam Abou Jamra, a former minister in Aoun’s government (1988-90). “The offenses were committed in Baabda and their perpetrator resides in Mount Lebanon,” Ghandour said, explaining the rationale for filing the case with Judge Aoun. The former president’s supporters denied the allegations, claiming that the judiciary had already ruled in Aoun’s favor.
State-owned Électricité du Liban announced that electricity bills for the months of November and December, the first invoices implementing an update to longstanding tariffs, will be calculated at an exchange rate lower than the current Sayrafa rate. EDL’s updated tariffs are owed in lira but calculated at a dollar value linked to the central bank Sayrafa rate. Customers will be billed, in practice, at the rate of LL52,320 to the dollar. The increased tariffs replace outdated prices that had incurred heavy losses for the state electricity utility, respond to demands by international donors and aim to fund future fuel purchases after years of shortage. EDL recently announced a boost to the number of hours of power it supplies and said it would begin a crackdown on illegal connections to its network as of today.
General Security is scheduled to start accepting passport requests from applicants without prior appointments as of today. General Security in a statement last month said citizens could go directly to regional centers and obtain new travel documents within 25 days. Appointments previously obtained through General Security’s digital platform will be canceled and the website will be repurposed for urgent passport requests. The new procedure follows a surge in demand for passports that resulted in yearlong wait times to obtain appointments via the online platform — which, according to former General Security head Abbas Ibrahim, was due to a payment issue-caused shortage of blank travel documents.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said he will “immediately call” for a 12th presidential election session when other parties nominate their candidates, after his formal backing of Marada head Sleiman Frangieh’s candidacy incurred criticism from Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. Berri told local daily Al-Joumhouria that endorsing Frangieh “could encourage other parties to present a candidate, or two,” setting “healthy competition” as a prerequisite for holding future election sessions. Geagea, for his part, refused to “facilitate [Frangieh’s] election” after his nominators repeatedly cast protest ballots during previous sessions, while also contesting the Marada Movement head’s potential presidency on the grounds that it would in effect be a presidency “based on … Hezbollah and its allies.” Parliament has remained undecided on a new head of state despite the holding of 11 presidential election sessions. The country has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended on Oct. 31. Forces of Change MPs have remained in Parliament since the end of the 11th voting session on Jan. 19 to demand an end to the presidential vacuum. Meanwhile, international actors have repeatedly called for an expedited election and the implementation of reforms.
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read article from over the weekend: “How Abbas Ibrahim was ‘sacrificed on the altar of politics’”
Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz