Lebanon ministry to audit govt. accounts
The Lebanese Finance Ministry will continue auditing government accounts, Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil has said.
“I assure you that the Finance Ministry, with the help of other departments and committees, will complete all pending accounts for the previous years,” he told a conference in Beirut.
The move comes after allegations by rival political parties of financial mismanagement and corruption in previous governments.
The ministry has started auditing all accounts of previous administrations dating back to 1996, when Fuad Siniora was the prime minister.
The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) is alleging that some previous governments, specifically those led by rival political party Future Movement, violated state accounting rules when they spent public money.
Lawmakers from the Future Movement have previously denied such allegations, claiming no wrongdoing when their political faction headed the Finance Ministry of Lebanon.
The finance minister has said all findings would be placed before the country’s parliament for final decision. This means the parliament of Lebanon would decide if further investigations and possible prosecutions were needed.
The Finance Ministry has repeated its call on authorities to approve the state budget for 2015 which is withheld amid political bickering.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned the Lebanese government that failure to pass the budget bill could force the US-based organization to withdraw all grants for Lebanon which are worth billions of dollars.
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