First, a welcome speech by the Director of the “Observatory of public functionand Good Governance,” Pr. Pascal Monin, in which he considered that “financial auditing is of great importance in the Central Bank in uncovering facts in front of public opinion and defining responsibilities, leading to accountability and achieving justice.”

He said: “It is obvious to emphasize that this audit should include all ministries, departments and public institutions, with the hope that this will allow the opportunity to know how and where public money was spent, and whether the rules and legal procedures have been adhered to in spending and managing public funds.”

He thanked the presidency of the Saint Joseph University for “supporting the Observatory in all its national academic work aimed at the good of Lebanon first and foremost,” and said: “We will carry in the Observatory the ladder in width, according to President Fouad Chehab, until things straighten out and we reach good governance, because with this type of governance, and only with it, we will find solutions for Lebanon.”

For his part, Bifani pointed out that he does not know “about the accounts of the Central Bank, and this is a big paradox in this country because there are still reserves that are forbidden for the state to know what is happening with the public money.”

He said: “I am happy to talk about forensic audit now because this matter was put in the draft budget in 2017 and it was not discussed, and it was also in 2018. I also put it in the government's project four times.”

On the reform plan drawn up by the government, he pointed out that “the international community praised it while it was shot internally because no one wants to reform and go to address the current economic crisis.”

He added: “They proposed an alternative plan to cover losses through the public property and freeze deposits, which means a terrifying Haircut that may last up to 20 years, and therefore the plan is ridiculous, but it was used to hit the government's plan, and the goal is to reach the impoverishment of the people by throwing losses on them either through the collapse of the Lebanese pound or even through Haircut.”

Regarding forensic auditing, he said: “There is a farce in dealing with the forensic audit file, and the great work we have already done, but there are those who do not want to continue with this file.”

He added, “The Central Bank has the autonomy to manage it, but it is owned by the state, and if it suffers a loss, the state is the one who returns its losses.”

He revealed that he prepared “the necessary studies on the financial accounts of the Lebanese state, which are lost today between the Audit Bureau and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers,” and said: “Since my arrival in the public administration in 2000, there have been no clear accounts of the Lebanese state, and I worked on reconstituting 28 years of accounts.”

“Forensic auditing is self-evident, but the question here is on which side the forensic audit will be?” he asked.

He stressed that “the actual reform begins with political authority and subjecting everyone with this authority to the judiciary, and the problem is not the administration, but the performance from the top of the pyramid to the bottom,” wondering: “can the state accept the lifting of banking secrecy to an external administration and refuse to raise it to an internal administration.”

In turn, Baroud said that “there is political resistance not to proceed with the forensic audit,” and said: “There are laws in force and can be followed, and we do not need new laws, although we can pass new laws if necessary.”

He added: “I bet on the judiciary, and I support the automatic publication of forensic audits, but we have to take advantage of this information to move judicially, and within the judiciary, there are assets of powers and jurisdiction.”

He continued: “In addition to judicial oversight, there is popular control that does not accept a half-term solution but wants satisfactory and adequate answers, and the issue is a matter of time and we will reach answers for everything that has happened so far.”

He concluded: “Everyone should follow the slogan ‘All of them means all of them,’ which means that everyone is under the law and accountable”

Mekhayber stressed that “the work of the Parliament and all oversight institutions was not sufficient in the matter of monitoring public funds and on what basis they were spent,” considering that “the role of oversight is disabled by the ruling political system, due to gaps in institutions, some of which were formed without effectiveness.”

He was not surprised that “Lebanon turns into a corrupt country because everyone is involved and no one has an interest in revealing corruption files,” stressing that “what is happening now in the matter of forensic auditing is a lie to the Lebanese people.”

Akoum explained the fact that new laws have been passed to lift banking secrecy and how to deal with forensic auditing from a legal point of view. It is noteworthy that the seminar, which was held on the campus of the Faculty of Humanities, was transmitted via Zoom, in addition to the official pages of the Observatory and Saint Joseph University via Facebook, and was attended by a large number of university students.