Former Economy Minister Alain Hakim on Tuesday slammed the ruling authority for its failure in holding accountable every responsible of this deteriorated situation, saying that the collapse is still ongoing and everyday Lebanon endures multiple crises.

 

“There is no confidence in the law of Capital Control presented by this system because the culprit cannot fix what he has committed, and the law is being addressed as they did in the salary scale, waste and other files that are filled with corruption,” Hakim said in an interview with VDL 24.

“Capital control is an action taken to regulate the flow of foreign capital in and out of a domestic economy and it does not protect bank deposits. There will always be different opinions when voting in favor of this law, and we will hear populist voices defending people’s deposits while the deposits evaporated," he added.

 

“Lebanon must implement bail-in resolution as the recovery of deposits for a long-term became the talk of the Lebanese who are facing 80% haircut with the absence of Capital Control law,” he noted.

 

“The current budget is like the previous ones and the Lebanese government have not developed a recovery plan yet, and even if they reach any draft, its application will remain in a "total deficit". Do you think that this budget is on the measurement of the country today? "If we implement world's best plan in Lebanon, it will inevitably fail with this ruling authority," he added.

 

“The potential of the Economy Ministry and all ministries is small additionally there are regulatory and legislative problems that are reducing the productivity of departments. Supervision and control can be within a general framework, we do not want excuses but we want actions and attempts,” he pointed out.

 

“Today, for example, the government is absent and the citizen is alone without any support. If we could reach 40% of the solutions we would have alleviated the burden of collapse and bad faith in decision-making that led us to the collapse,” he added.

Hakim stressed that no one was against the Lebanese judiciary rather against the system’s arbitrary and discretionary application.

“The mafia that is controlling the Lebanese people is protected by weapons and vice versa through the parallel economy which is based on smuggling and the monetary economy that is protected by militias. Frameworks of sovereignty are known but missing from the Lebanese government, from the presidency and from the parliament and the proof is the crises we are experiencing," he noted.

“We, as force of change, seek new rules in political life based on efficiency, whether in legislative or in the executive power and the creation of these rules comes after the parliamentary elections. Optimism exists today through parliamentary elections and resisting to this system will continue in the coming period,”he said.

 

Hakim stressed that the upcoming parliamentary elections will be held on May 15th, pointing out that no one will accept extension.

 

“Change will be achieved and the future generations will contribute to it while the system’s parties are trying to portray that there is no hope for change through ballot boxes,” he concluded.