Mikati 'won't keep Salameh in post, won't name replacement'
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has asked ministers about what can be done in the Syrian refugee file and the looming vacuum in the central bank governor post in light of the ongoing presidential void, a media report said.
Mikati raised the question in Monday’s consultative ministerial meeting at the Grand Serail, which was attended by all of the government’s components including the Free Patriotic Movement.
“What should we do if the time for the departure of Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh from his post nears? I stress that he will not stay in his post at all and that I will not name anyone to replace him,” Mikati told the ministers, according to the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper.
Salameh is the target of a series of judicial investigations in Lebanon and abroad on suspicion of embezzlement and money laundering, among other allegations, with investigators looking into the fortune he has amassed during three decades in the job.
France, Germany and Luxembourg seized assets worth 120 million euros ($130 million) in March 2022 in a move linked to a French probe into Salameh's personal wealth.
Lebanese authorities have charged Salameh with embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion as part of their own investigation.
The domestic probe was opened following a request for assistance from Switzerland's public prosecutor looking into more than $300 million in fund movements by the Salameh brothers.
Salameh, whose mandate is due to end in July, is part of the Lebanese political class widely blamed for a crushing economic crisis that began in late 2019 and which the World Bank has dubbed one of the worst in recent history.
European investigators questioned Salameh, who denies wrongdoing, in Beirut last month.
He has been summoned for a hearing in France on May 16.
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