a total of thirty seven people including 23 children were killed in an attack that has shocked the nation. those are the headlines. now on bbc news it s time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. lebanon is experiencing one of the most disastrous economic collapses of the last 100 years. the national economy is less than half the size it was just three years ago. one powerful symbol of the catastrophe, people are holding up banks in a desperate attempt to get their money out, amid rampant inflation and a currency crisis. my guest is lebanon s minister of economy and trade, amin salam. politicians have failed lebanon for decades. will that change before the meltdown is complete? minister amin salam, currently in washington, dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. thank you, stephen, glad to be with you. well, we re delighted to have you in our washington studio. let me ask you, minister, do you think you and your government are levelling with the lebanese peop
in a desperate attempt to get their money out, amid rampant inflation and a currency crisis. my guest is lebanon s minister of economy and trade, amin salam. politicians have failed lebanon for decades. will that change before the meltdown is complete? minister amin salam, currently in washington, dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. thank you, stephen, glad to be with you. well, we re delighted to have you in our washington studio. let me ask you, minister, do you think you and your government are levelling with the lebanese people, and indeed with the international community as well, about the scale of the economic catastrophe that your country is currently living through? absolutely. stephen, let me tell you, it has been quite a challenging year since our government took office and we started really working on a very tough mission to recover the economy in lebanon and to fix all the mess that the past two decades have left lebanon in. our government came with a big title th
they are asking for a solution that they have not received yet. but i am against anybody resorting to violence and breaking the law. but i think they should. ok, that s clear. one of the big problems that the lebanese people see is endemic, massive corruption. now, injuly 2020, a former senior official in the ministry of finance said that while, even then, many, many controls had been put on cash withdrawals from lebanese banks, that ordinary lebanese people were really tightly controlled in terms of access to their money. he said more than $6 billion was being smuggled out of the country by what he called a dirty money elite. it seems, according to lebanese media reports, that is still going on. there is still one rule for the political elite in your country and something entirely different for the ordinary lebanese people.
people were really tightly controlled in terms of access to their money. he said more than $6 billion was being smuggled out of the country by what he called a dirty money elite. it seems, according to lebanese media reports, that is still going on. there is still one rule for the political elite in your country and something entirely different for the ordinary lebanese people. when are you going to fix that? stephen, i am one of the ministers that came to this government with a mission of change and to fight corruption. i came from many years of living overseas as an international lawyer, and my mission, when i decided to come to lebanon and be in public service was to fight corruption, to fight what you calljust now the political elite that have been holding hostage this country for the past 30 years. and i absolutely agree with the official from the ministry of finance. yes.