MP Charbel Masaad storms bank in Sidon
Independent MP Charbel Masaad on Friday stormed a bank in the southern city of Sidon to demand that a depositor be paid his money in cash, the state-run National News Agency reported.
The lawmaker, who is still inside the bank, held “banks, the banking system and the central bank governor responsible for people’s suicide,” NNA added.
The Association of Banks in Lebanon announced Thursday that the country’s banks will resume their open-ended strike on Tuesday, March 14, decrying recent judicial rulings. The banks had suspended their strike on February 24 at the request of caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
The strike began on Feb. 7 in protest of a recent court ruling that forced one of the country's largest banks to pay out two of its depositors their trapped savings in cash.
Lebanon's banks have been hard hit by the country's historic economic meltdown that began in October 2019 and have since imposed informal capital controls under which depositors have been able to withdraw only small amounts of their savings at an exchange rate far lower than the one used on the market.
The economic crisis -- rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement by the country's political class -- has left more than three quarters of Lebanon's population of 6 million in poverty. The Lebanese pound has lost 97% of its value against the dollar.
The informal capital controls have prompted some overseas depositors, locked out of their savings, to launch lawsuits overseas and in Lebanon to pressure banks to release their savings in full. In Lebanon, some depositors opted to break into banks, armed, and forced cashiers to hand over their money. Several such armed actions last year prompted the banks to go on strike in September 2022 and close down amid security fears for a week.
In mid-February, angry Lebanese smashed windows and set tires on fire outside two of the country's biggest banks in the capital, Beirut, as the value of the Lebanese pound hit a new low.
Banks have meanwhile refused attempts to make their shareholders assume responsibility for the crisis -- as envisaged under a proposed economic recovery plan -- and have insisted that the government and their own depositors share the biggest burden for the losses.
Source: Naharnet
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