Lebanon extends deadline to submit data for forensic audit, says finmin

Lebanon's caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni announced on Thursday a three-month extension of a deadline to provide all data required for a forensic audit of the central bank after it declined to submit some information, citing bank secrecy laws. The caretaker prime minister and three sources familiar with the matter have said that Banque du Liban (BDL) had withheld information needed by restructuring consultancy Alvarez & Marsal to begin the audit, which is a key demand for foreign financial assistance to help Lebanon tackle a financial meltdown.

Lebanon's caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni announced on Thursday a three-month extension of a deadline to provide all data required for a forensic audit of the central bank after it declined to submit some information, citing bank secrecy laws.

The caretaker prime minister and three sources familiar with the matter have said that Banque du Liban (BDL) had withheld information needed by restructuring consultancy Alvarez & Marsal to begin the audit, which is a key demand for foreign financial assistance to help Lebanon tackle a financial meltdown. "In these three months, the Lebanese government will try to secure the documents that will allow the company to carry out the (audit) contract," Wazni said in a televised news briefing following a meeting with Lebanon's president, the central bank governor and an Alvarez & Marsal official.

"The forensic audit is a reform measure and President (Michel) Aoun stressed the importance of abiding by it," he added. BDL said in a statement on Wednesday that it had provided its own accounts for the audit, but that it should be the government that submits full state accounts to the turnaround specialist hired by Lebanon this year to "spare the central bank from violating legally binding bank secrecy laws".

Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri, named last month, has been trying to navigate Lebanon's sectarian politics to form a cabinet to bring in reforms needed to tackle the country's worst crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war, including banking paralysis, a currency crash and spreading poverty.