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Lebanon Still Facing Financial Crisis, One Month After Massive Explosion

Dale Gavlak

   AMMAN, JORDAN - Lebanon is in the throes of its worst financial crisis
   since its independence in 1943, observers say, and the Beirut port
   explosion in early August has only compounded its woes. Public debt
   amounts to more than 150% of GDP and is among the highest in the world.
   Audits of the central bank are ongoing, but experts say it will be a
   challenge to get the country's financial house in order
   Alain Bifani, Lebanon's former director general of the Finance
   Ministry, resigned in June over the way Lebanon's leadership handled
   the country's financial crisis. He told the Carnegie Middle East Center
   that talks with the International Monetary Fund broke down because the
   government and the political elite wrangled over what numbers to give
   the IMF for a reform program.
   "Reality is that we don't negotiate figures. We negotiate how to
   eliminate the losses. How to distribute the burden of the losses, not
   the size of the losses themselves because if we start doing that, any
   program that we will build on wrong figures will have very detrimental
   effects on the country," Bifani said.
   The IMF wants Lebanon's banking sector overhauled, formal capital
   controls put in place, corruption tackled, a forensic audit and reform
   of the state electricity company, and changes to the telecom sector,
   according to economists.

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