On the eve of the month of Ramadan, the banks collapsed to announce the suspension of their strike, which began on March 14, the second in two months, in order to “facilitate the affairs of all citizens and in light of the ongoing contacts with the concerned authorities to address the imbalance in the judicial and regulatory facility…”.
As before the strike, as well as during and after it, the banks remained under the microscope of insults, accusations and threats. The strike accepted lawsuits at home and abroad, and calls for storming it, destroying its machines and facades, and threatening its employees. As for during it, she was subject to questioning the goal by accusing her of having fanned the fuse of the black market dollar to the point of insanity without any deterrence, and holding her fully responsible for that. And when she announced the suspension of the strike yesterday evening, she did not escape, since the publication of her statement until today, from being included in the list of “aspirants” by raising the ceiling of the “banking” dollar to 90 thousand pounds for one dollar, as it collects commissions from the platform’s operations, according to the owners of many statements and articles. .
In refutation of these accusations, a financial source following the money market via “Markazia” states that “during the period of the banks’ strike, the “Sarafa” platform was continuing its work, and the Banque du Liban issued a daily evening statement about the daily volume of trading on the “Sarafa” platform, and according to what price was recorded. In recent days, a successive rise until it reached yesterday evening the ceiling of 90 thousand, while the US dollar, on the other hand, continued its rise in the parallel market until it exceeded 130 thousand pounds, until the few moments that preceded the decision of the Governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, yesterday afternoon.
And he continues: However, some parties wanted to hold the banks and their association responsible for the insane rise in the exchange rate of the dollar, so they suspended the strike to curb more flights of the dollar in the parallel market by the “well-known money changers” after they took advantage of their strike to ignite the exchange rate in order to achieve profits and hide behind the banks’ strike… And when it opened its doors, insults rained down on it that it had suspended the strike in the hope of the commissions that it obtained from the operations of the “Sarafa” platform, and that it had used the pretext of facilitating the affairs of citizens at the beginning of the month of Ramadan.
“The matter is surprising,” says the source. “If she goes on strike, she will be blamed and accused of causing the dollar exchange rate to ignite, and if she opens her doors, they will accuse her of greed for “banking” commissions! She also finds herself under the yoke of lawsuits and accusations if she intends to pay in cash or by check. This calls for condemnation of such positions, whose source and intentions are known?!
This is to return the financial source and confirm that “some money changers, and they are known, are resentful of suspending the bank strike now because it is no longer able to unleash the exchange rate of the dollar after it benefited from its closure throughout that period to achieve profits at the expense of citizens, so that some associations called for a boycott.” banking, “assuming he is circumventing the banks!”, to conclude by asking the banking sector the question, “Doesn’t all these accusations force you to force a comprehensive and open closure, in order to understand what these skeptics want and what are their plans?!”.
