Lebanon’s SGBL bank on Thursday denied as “totally baseless” media reports claiming that politicians and shareholders had made transfers through the bank to foreign financial institutions in the wake of the October 17 uprising.

Angry supporters of the Progressive Socialist Party on Thursday tried to reach a demo held by the Free Patriotic Movement outside the central bank on Beirut's Hamra Street.

Army troops and riot police separated between the two groups to prevent any violence.

President Michel Aoun said Thursday that “measures will be taken to pinpoint every person’s responsibility, especially as to the transfer of sums of money in an illegal manner that aggravated the severity of the crisis.”

Aoun was speaking at the beginning of the weekly Cabinet session in Baabda.

Lebanese protesters rallied on Thursday outside headquarters of the economy ministry in Downtown Beirut to protest against uncontrolled hike in prices of consumer goods.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab held his first meeting with a delegation from the International Monetary Fund to assess the measures needed to rebuild Lebanon’s economy, the National News Agency reported on Thursday.

The weekly Cabinet meeting convened at Baabda Palace on Thursday to discuss 30 items on the agenda, mainly an “emergency plan” to tackle pressing issues, as the debt-ridden country seeks assistance to rescue its moribund economy.

France reportedly plans to “increase its presence” in crisis-hit Lebanon to help it overcome its economic crisis, as the debt-ridden country seeks assistance to rescue its moribund economy, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Thursday.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri said recent remarks by Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil prove that he is the country’s “shadow president.”

“If he is the one who decides when I would return (to power), this proves what I said about him being the shadow president,” Hariri told reporters when asked about Bassil’s remarks.

Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm on Wednesday asked State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat to expand investigations into all “suspicious” transfers to foreign banks.

The National News Agency said Najm called on Oueidat to request that the central bank’s Special Investigation Commission provide him with “all the information it has about all the money transfers from Lebanon to foreign banks and not to limit the information to the money that was transferred to Switzerland.”

President Michel Aoun will not sign the 2020 state budget because it “does not include a final account for the year 2018,” his adviser Salim Jreissati said on Wednesday.

“This is considered a violation and the President rejects it,” Jreissati told MTV.