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Among items approved include proposed amendment of country’s banking secrecy laws

MPs approved a $150 million loan from the World Bank to support wheat imports for the next six to nine months. Reuters

By Jamie Prentis

By MENA – Jul 26, 2022

Chaotic scenes marked the Lebanese Parliament’s first legislative session since the May 15 elections, with MPs given the task of voting on 40 draft laws on Tuesday.
Among the items approved include a proposed amendment of Lebanon’s banking secrecy laws and a $150 million loan from the World Bank to support wheat imports for the next six to nine months.
Insults were traded on the floor of Parliament, particularly between MPs from Amal — the party of Speaker Nabih Berri — and those from the opposition bloc the Forces of Change, which is linked to the October 2019 protests against the ruling class that led to the collapse of the government.
In one session, Forces of Change MP Cynthia Zarazir was branded a “cockroach” by Amal MP Kabalan Kabalan.
The amendments to the banking secrecy laws are one of a number of prerequisites for $3 billion in funds from the International Monetary Fund.
However, the bill has been watered down from its original version and allows government institutions to lift secrecy specifically in cases of criminal investigations, including in illicit enrichment, money laundering and terrorism financing.
But the original draft law would have allowed banking secrecy to be lifted to investigate “all financial crimes”.
Tense scenes could be witnessed outside Parliament as well: family members of the victims of the August 2020 blast that struck Beirut’s port protested in front of the building, demanding that MPs pass a law that would classify the port’s silos as a monument to the more than 200 people who died.
“We want [the MPs] to keep the silos as a memorial to the victims that lost their lives,” Mariana Fodoulian, whose 29-year-old sister Gaia died in the blast, told The National.
The 2020 explosion occurred after a large stock of ammonium nitrate, which had been sitting at the port for years, caught fire.

 

Hasan Mortada suffered six broken vertebrae and two broken pelvic bones

“We believe that [the silos] are a collective memory that should be preserved. We should remember the casualties everyday,” Elias Hankach, an MP for the Kataeb Party, told The National outside Parliament.
The Kataeb Party, whose secretary-general Nazar Najarian died in the blast, is behind one of the two draft laws that would classify the silos as a monument.
The silos remain a sensitive topic in Lebanon: the explosion has been blamed on mismanagement and corruption, and is viewed as a symptom of the country’s many systemic problems.
In April, the Lebanese Cabinet approved the demolition of the silos after a survey found that they could collapse in the coming months. In addition, a nearly three-week long fire has been burning unchecked at the site, leading to fears it may cave in.
But families of the victims filed three separate lawsuits last month to stop the demolition.

“Like anywhere in the world, in Hiroshima, in Ground Zero [in New York], in Berlin, we keep a memory of a big catastrophe that happened,” Mr Hankach said.
The demonstrators also protested against the election of the seven MPs who will form the 15-member Supreme Council, which is able to prosecute politicians. The other eight members are judges.
An investigation into the port explosion by judge Tarek Bitar has struggled to make headway amid repeated delays. Two sitting MPs in the Lebanese Parliament have been charged in connection with the investigation but have refused to attend interrogation hearings.
Some MPs have suggested the Supreme Council should be the sole body prosecuting politicians charged in connection with the blast — but no MP has ever been tried by the council, despite its decades-long existence.
Protesters believe it is an attempt by those accused of responsibility for the blast to evade justice.

“It’s been 30 years that we had have this Supreme Council. It’s never working and we never saw anyone in jail,” said Ms Fodoulian.
“They are trying to take the investigation from the hands of the judge and take it to the Parliament. This is not acceptable for us.
“We need the support of the Lebanese people. We will never forget and we have to punish [those responsible] so that nothing else will happen again.”

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Miguel Hadchity· 
Lebanon News
·July 27, 2022

 

Annahar | @cynthia Zarazir

 

The General Secretariat of the Lebanese parliament issued a statement denying what MP Cynthia Zarazir stated in some media outlets yesterday and through social media, calling it totally incorrect.

Pointing out that the General Secretariat in its performance and the performance of its administrative, legal, moral, and behavioral staff, “It is not in their vocabulary to distinguish between any of the MPs.”
The General Secretariat decided to respond to everything that MP Cynthia Zarazir stated about bullying, harassment, sexism, and porn magazines in the parliament.

“MP Zarazir knows that she and her colleagues, since the first day of her entry into the parliament, were granted everything from a parking lot for her car and a private office,” the statement issued.
Adding, “Every word from her, otherwise, is a slander and a denial of the truth.”
The General Secretariat expressed its hope that “MP Zarazir would be far from agitation, mobilization, and populism.”

... continue reading.

Miguel Hadchity· 
Lebanon News
·July 26, 2022

 

 

The Lebanese Parliament convened Tuesday, in its first legislative session, to vote on 40 draft laws.
The proposed draft laws included a wheat loan from the World Bank, in the presence of U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea who attended the session.
For the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to financially support Lebanon, parliament’s approval of a reformed bank secrecy law is required.
Additionally, the parliament discussed the maritime border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel and two laws that aim to protect the Beirut port silos against demolition.
A group of MPs proposed an expedited draft law, which was introduced to the public on July 21st by MP Paola Yacoubian, with a single clause: “The wheat silos building in the Beirut port is a landmark of national human heritage that commemorates the tragic memory of the Beirut port explosion, and it is necessary to strengthen the building and maintain it.”
Signatories stated that the law needed to be expedited because of the “persistent and serious attempts to demolish the silos in the Beirut port,” after the latest fire lasted for days without any effort from authorities to put it out.
Signatories include MPs of Change Melhem Khalaf, Rami Fanj, Najat Aoun, Paula Yacoubian, Yassin Yassin, Michel Douaihy, Firas Hamdan, and Mark Daou.
The Kataeb political party had proposed a similar law earlier in June, while MPs George Okais and former MP Imad Wakim had also proposed an expedited law in April to protect the silos until the end of the judicial investigation.
In the meantime, the MPs of Change protested in front of the parliament urging the approval of the laws that protect Beirut port silos which “may contain evidence useful for a judicial probe.”

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Published July 26th, 2022 – 09:56 GMT

Lebanese protest outside the parliament (AFP)

ALBAWABA – The Lebanese parliament held its first session, Tuesday, without a sign of the formation of a new government under the current acting Prime Minister Najeeb Mikati.

The parliament has a heavy schedule in front of it. It is to vote on 40 draft laws, including a reformed bank secrecy law and a wheat loan from the World Bank, in the presence of U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea who attended the session according to Annahar.

Parliament’s approval of a reformed bank secrecy law is required by the International Monetary Fund to financially support Lebanon. The aim is to fight corruption and detect and investigate financial crimes, the Lebanese daily added.

There is still no sign of a government formation despite the fact that Mikati is going “back-and-forth” to the presidential palace with proposed formation list of government minister.

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i24NEWS – Reuters
July 26, 2022 at 09:41 AMlatest revision July 26, 2022 at 10:12 AM

ANWAR AMRO / AFPThe first session of the Lebanese parliament’s newly-elected assembly at its headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, on May 31, 2022.

The bill allows government bodies to lift banking secrecy in cases of criminal investigations

Lebanon’s parliament on Tuesday passed long-awaited amendments to a banking secrecy law, in the first step toward reforms required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
However, according to a Reuters witness, the amendments were watered down from the original proposal, leading one of the architects of the country’s economic recovery to seek feedback from the IMF.

Lebanon and the IMF signed a staff-level agreement in April for $3 billion in funding to ease the country’s economic crisis, described by the World Bank as among the top three financial meltdowns in centuries.
The aid package is conditional on prerequisites, including a banking restructuring strategy, capital controls, a 2022 budget, and a reformed banking secrecy law.

The bill, read out in parliament’s first general session since elections in May, does not lift banking secrecy as a whole.
It does, however, allow government bodies to lift secrecy in cases of criminal investigations, including in illicit enrichment, money laundering, and terrorism funding.
The originally proposed bill would have allowed banking secrecy to be lifted to investigate “all financial crimes,” but parliament voted to remove that language, limiting the law’s scope.
Deputy Prime Minister Saade Chami, the architect of the country’s financial recovery roadmap, said he didn’t agree with the version of the law.
He told Reuters he would send the law to the IMF to confirm whether it meets its expectations.

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