BEIRUT: Restructuring consultancy Alvarez & Marsal has yet to receive all the information it has requested to conduct a forensic audit of Lebanon’s central bank, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
The Lebanese government hired the turnaround specialist this year to audit the central bank as the country grapples with a financial meltdown on a scale it has never seen before.
Alvarez & Marsal declined to comment.
The central bank said this month that it had provided “all the documents and information which Lebanese laws allow.”
Lebanon’s crisis has hammered the local currency, paralyzed banks and prompted a sovereign default. The audit is a key demand of the International Monetary Fund and of foreign donors, with France at the forefront, which have pressed the indebted state to tackle waste and corruption.
A Lebanese official source and two other sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday that a team from Alvarez & Marsal, which visited Beirut this month, did not receive all the information it requested from the central bank.
The bank had cited legislation and banking secrecy, said the sources, who all declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The sources said Alvarez & Marsal had sent a new set of questions to the central bank. It was not clear if they covered information already requested.
A spokesman for Lebanon’s central bank, in response to a Reuters request for comment, said it had provided all its accounts for the audit, but added it “can not provide the accounts of its clients, by law not by choice.”
He added that the contract signed between the company and the finance ministry was subject to Lebanese law, so it was “no surprise” that some information could not be disclosed.
Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh did not respond to a request for comment.
Local broadcasters cited MP Ibrahim Kanaan, head of parliament’s budget and financial affairs commission, as saying on Wednesday that the contract was subject to Lebanese laws including banking secrecy, and that it should be amended. He did not elaborate on how it should be changed.
Firm hired to audit Lebanon central bank has not received all requested info — sources
https://arab.news/y6frm
Firm hired to audit Lebanon central bank has not received all requested info — sources
Work suspended on Riyadh’s massive Mukaab megaproject: Reuters
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has suspended planned construction of a colossal cube-shaped skyscraper at the center of a downtown development in Riyadh while it reassesses the project's financing and feasibility, four people familiar with the matter said.
The Mukaab was planned as a 400-meter by 400-meter metal cube containing a dome with an AI-powered display, the largest on the planet, that visitors could observe from a more than 300-meter-tall ziggurat — or terraced structure —inside it.
Its future is now unclear, with work beyond soil excavation and pilings suspended, three of the people said. Development of the surrounding real estate is set to continue, five people familiar with the plans said.
The sources include people familiar with the project's development and people privy to internal deliberations at the PIF.
Officials from PIF, the Saudi government and the New Murabba project did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Real estate consultancy Knight Frank estimated the New Murabba district would cost about $50 billion — roughly equivalent to Jordan’s GDP — with projects commissioned so far valued at around $100 million.
Initial plans for the New Murabba district called for completion by 2030. It is now slated to be completed by 2040.
The development was intended to house 104,000 residential units and add SR180 billion to the Kingdom’s GDP, creating 334,000 direct and indirect jobs by 2030, the government had estimated previously.
(With Reuters)
