Report: CEDRE Auditor Says Lebanon Troubled with 'Corruption'

An official French auditor of the Paris I, II and III conferences on Lebanon, who also took part in the latest CEDRE conference, said Lebanon is plagued with “unprecedented corruption” describing its public debt as a “cancerous situation,” the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa daily reported on Monday.

The daily quoted the auditor, whose remarks were leaked, who said the preparatory committee for CEDRE Conference asked him, as a representative of the IMF, to give it his trust.

But he replied saying “I find it difficult to give you the blind trust, noting that this is the first time in French history that the French government is setting up an international donation platform a few days before the general elections in the recipient country.”

“There is unprecedented corruption in Lebanon,” he said.

Since 1999, France has provided “in vain” the Lebanese government with the necessary recommendations to reduce public debt compared to other countries. “No better description of this situation than a cancerous situation,” the observer noted.

“I worked in Tanzania, Botswana, Nigeria and Ivory Coast, as well as in 25 other African countries, and found that the only country close to Lebanon was Botswana, and to a lesser extent Zimbabwe, despite the intellectual and cultural capabilities in Lebanon today,” he stated.