Description: dollar bill drawing on an electricity poll in Mar Mikhael, Beirut. (Credit: Sandrine Frem and Pao Ibrahim)
- Lebanon’s cabinet set conditions dictating the distribution of performance bonuses to civil servants, ranging from $168 to $280 per month depending on employees’ position and responsibilities, to be paid in Lebanese pounds.
The bonuses were initially introduced unevenly, leading to strikes and subsequent freezing of bonuses, but were then reinstated on Feb. 28.
Conditions for receiving bonuses include monthly evaluation reports on tasks completed, adherence to official attendance times, and justification of absences with legal documents.
Bonuses are forfeited for more than five days of absence in a month or less than 16 work days logged, even if absences are justified. Verification of attendance time will be conducted according to existing mechanisms outlined in decree no. 13.020 of 28/2/2024.
- The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA)’ concluded that Bank Audi’s Swiss subsidiary violated anti-money laundering regulations. "Bank Audi (Suisse) SA has failed in its obligations to prevent money laundering and has thus seriously violated the rules of financial market law,” FINMA stated in a press release on Monday, March 25.
Bank Audi – along with BankMed, HSBC and Julius Baer – is one of the banks targeted by one of the few complaints lodged with FINMA in 2022 by seven Swiss and Lebanese activist groups in connection with the alleged financial offenses of former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh.
In total, by Feb. 2023, FINMA has investigated 12 banks concerning allegations of money laundering linked to Salameh’s corruption case.
- Inflation slowed down in February. The monthly consumer price index (CPI), calculated by the Central Administration of Statistics (CAS), increased by 1.06 percent compared to +2.87 percent in January. On an annual basis, the CPI rose by 123.21 percent, down from 177.25 percent in January.
The monthly trend is mostly attributed to the stability of the exchange rate. Despite its volatility not long ago, the rate has hovered at around LL89,500 to the dollar for several months now.
The greatest monthly price variations were recorded for alcoholic beverages and tobacco (+4.27 percent), leisure and entertainment (+3.48 percent), transport (+2.5 percent) and healthcare (+1.68 percent), while there were also notable drops, in clothing (-3.34 percent) and telecommunications (-0.09 percent).
- The price of gasoline and gas cylinders rose again this week while the price of diesel decreased, as revealed in the new price list published by the Energy and Water Ministry.
- Catch L’Orient Today’s discussion about the bank restructuring draft law with Wassim Shahin, Dean of the LAU Adnan Kassar School of Business and monetary policy professor: