Qaouq: Anti-Corruption Campaign Not for Settling Old Records

Hizbullah central council member Sheikh Nabil Qaouq on Monday said the party is dealing with a “new responsibility in fighting corruption,” noting that its latest campaign is “not meant to take revenge against anyone.”

“Hizbullah is addressing a new national responsibility to serve the entire Lebanese, because the State can only be built on the course of reform and through the obligatory path of combating corruption and controlling the next expenditure in the Lebanese government,” said Qaouq at a festival in Tyre.

Qaouq said through its course in fighting corruption, the party is not “aiming to take revenge against anyone.”

Hizbullah MP Hassan Fadlallah, who is in charge of Hizbullah’s anti-corruption bureau, called recently for a probe into what he claimed were missing state funds amounting to $11 billion dollars.

He was indirectly pointing a finger at former PM Fouad Saniora.

He submitted financial documents to the judiciary that he claimed could take many people “end up in jail including former prime ministers.”

For his turn, Saniora described the issue of the “missing” $11 billion as a “farce,” as he announced that those “setting up mini-states inside the state” are the real corrupts, in an apparent jab at Hizbullah.

Saniora said the 11 billion dollars in question were spent on interest hikes, treasury loans for Electricite Du Liban, and wage hikes and recruitment expenses for the armed forces.