Lebanon seeks financial lifeline from the IMF

Talks began on Wednesday with Lebanon seeking a multi-billion-dollar bailout to avoid bankruptcy.

Lebanon’s leaders are seeking a financial lifeline from the International Monetary Fund.

Talks began on Wednesday with Lebanon seeking a multi-billion-dollar bailout to avoid bankruptcy.

The United Nations coordinator in Lebanon says Lebanese negotiators are aware that blank cheques will not be handed out.

Lebanon arrests central bank official over currency manipulation, According to Aljazeera News

The financial prosecutor’s order marks the first arrest of an official at the central bank during Lebanon’s crisis.

Lebanon’s financial prosecutor has ordered the arrest of the head of monetary operations at the central bank amid a widening probe into manipulation of the country’s volatile currency. 

The arrest of Mazen Hamdan late on Thursday marked the first such move against an official at the increasingly embattled institution since Lebanon’s currency crisis began last summer. 

The Lebanese Lira, long set at 1,500 to $1, is now trading for roughly 4,200 to the greenback on the black market amid an acute dollar shortage linked to dried-up remittances, corruption, and unsustainable fiscal policies.

Its demise is just one part of a full-blown financial crisis that has pushed the small, economically crippled nation to seek $20bn in foreign aid, of which $10bn is supposed to come from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) program. 

The crisis has seen tens of thousands of people lose jobs and poverty soar to almost 50 percent, according to finance ministry data. Last month, Social Affairs Minister Ramzi Moucharafieh said some 70-75 percent of the population required aid after the economic crisis was exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, while the IMF forecast the economy would shrink by 12 percent this year – one of the worst recessions in the world.

‘Economic nonsense’

The country’s currency had been on a steady downwards trajectory against the US dollar since August. That slide turned into a freefall in late April, with a roughly 12 percent drop in a single day, leading to nationwide street protests and riots.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government blamed the central bank for failing to inject dollars into the market to stabilise the currency. Diab also alleged the central bank governor, Riad Salameh, may be aiming to intentionally hurt the currency, noting “suspicious ambiguity” in decisions. 

Salameh denied these charges as part of a “campaign” against him and said he has worked to keep the currency stable for decades through successive political crises and conflict. 

The central bank subsequently ordered all currency exchange dealers to trade dollars at a rate of 3,200 – its third attempt to implement an exchange rate cap since the crisis began. At the same time, security forces launched a crackdown against any traders who went above this rate, leading all exchange dealers to go on a strike now heading into its fourth week.

Unrelenting, financial prosecutor Ali Ibrahim has ordered the arrest of several dozen exchange dealers in recent weeks, including the head of the currency exchange dealers’ syndicate, Mahmoud Mrad.

On Thursday, he also ordered the arrest of Hamdan, who remains in custody.