Parliament’s finance and budget committee chair, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, complained on Wednesday that not a single Lebanese official has been held accountable under anti-corruption laws.
“We only see defamation and insults but no officials held accountable (for their actions). Therefore, stop talking and start respecting laws and punishing officials through a free and independent judiciary,” he said.
Kanaan was speaking following a parliamentary finance and budget sub-committee meeting held on Wednesday to continue studying a bill amending the banking secrecy law.
“We approved a law to lift the banking secrecy … of elected and all the way to appointed civil servants,” announced Kanaan.
He said the sub-committee also placed unified frameworks to restore the role of the judiciary as the authority entitled to lift banking secrecy mainly in illegal enrichment cases.
Kanaan noted that lawmakers, particularly the finance and budget committee, are exerting tremendous efforts to draft reform laws.
However, he said, “what is required is not to have numerous legislations, but to implement the bills through an executive authority that respects laws and a judicial authority that is capable to punish, something that we have not yet seen.”
