Aoun Reminds BDL of Deadline to Submit Financial Audit Files

President Michel Aoun on Thursday reminded the Lebanese that only a few days separate them from “the juncture of the handing over of files and documents by Banque du Liban to the financial audit firm.”

“There is a deadline for submitting BDL’s files and documents to the financial audit firm and we and the Lebanese people are monitoring,” Aoun added in a tweet.

On April 9, Lebanon provided the auditing firm with "updated" information for a stalled forensic audit of the central bank demanded by the international community, the finance ministry said.

The International Monetary Fund and France are among creditors demanding an audit of Banque du Liban as part of urgent reforms to unlock financial support, as the country faces its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

The finance ministry said the central bank had sent it "the updated list of information requested by the forensic auditing firm Alvarez and Marsal and the ministry has sent it on to the firm."

But BDL apparently did not hand over all the files and an agreement was reached on a new deadline.

New York-based Alvarez and Marsal in November pulled out from the audit after the central bank claimed that provisions including Lebanon's banking secrecy law prevented it from releasing some of the necessary information.

Lebanon's parliament in December approved a bill that suspends banking secrecy laws for one year to allow for the forensic audit.