Economics
Lebanon’s Premier Slams Central Bank Chief Over Currency Chaos
- Government in talks with the IMF over its economic rescue plan
- The local currency heavily depreciated on the parallel market
People wait for their turn outside an ATM on a near empty street in Beirut
Photographer: Patrick Baz/AFP via Getty Images
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Lebanon’s prime minister launched a scathing attack on central bank Governor Riad Salameh over the sharp depreciation of the pound on the unofficial market amid the country’s worst ever financial crisis.
“There is a dilemma in the suspicious and mysterious way the central bank governor is dealing with the deterioration of the exchange rate of the Lebanese pound, and that’s causing the collapse,” Hassan Diab said in a televised address from the presidential palace. He said either the bank had been “paralyzed” or was the “instigator of this dramatic drop” in the exchange rate.