BDL added a footnote to its latest bi-monthly BDL balance sheet where roughly 16 billion dollars was added to the public debt owned by the Lebanese state to the Central Bank. The reasoning behind it? BDL Governor Salameh seemingly has just realized that he’s been loaning the state since 2007 and decided to record what the state owns him as assets, all that “shockingly” few months before his term expires.

In other words, he’s reshuffling the balance sheet to reduce the banks’ losses and increase substantially the Lebanese state public debt. Added to that, he’s camouflaging the 50 billion dollar loss by adding 16 billion dollars as a debt obligation and a “valuation adjustment” asset amounting to roughly 36 billion dollars. Why is he doing that? Because the banks have been plotting with the BDL and ruling political parties of course to exploit public funds to cut their losses under the false pretext of returning bank deposits to their owners.

بس كل الحق عل lلحصار!!

I recommend you check out Jad’s episode on this scandal for more in-depth explanation.