Diab Tackles Unofficial Exchange Rate Platforms, Slams Riots

Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Monday chaired a meeting dedicated to tackling the electronic platforms that track the dollar exchange rate on the black market.

The meeting was attended by the caretaker ministers of finance, interior, justice and telecommunications, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat, Cabinet Secretary-General Mahmoud Makkiyeh and Diab’s advisor Khodor Taleb.

“There is a major difference between the screams of pain and objection and the acts of chaos, rioting, road-blocking and attacking people’s properties and the army and security forces,” Diab said during the meeting.

Hailing the October 17 uprising as a “great example,” the premier warned that “what’s happening today distorts people’s scream and wastes their demands.”

“What’s happening is against the people and not for them. Whose interest is served from the smashing of people’s cars, the attacks on their properties and the blocking of roads in their faces?” Diab added.

He also lamented that “chaos erupts on the streets” whenever “a chance looms to benefit from a touristic season and from the money that can enter into the country due to this season.”

“The entire country -- the state and its institutions, the central bank, 64 banks, companies, shops and six million people – are being controlled by a platform or several platforms that set, hike and lower the dollar exchange rate on the black market,” Diab decried.

“How can we allow an unknown platform whose operators and objectives are obscure to control the fate of a state and its people? This is an absurd thing!” the premier added.