Bifani Hits Back at Saniora, Says He Defied Attempt to Prevent Auditing

Finance Ministry Director General Alain Bifani on Wednesday accused ex-PM Fouad Saniora, without naming him, of seeking to prevent the auditing of the state's financial transactions during his term as finance minister.

“I faced huge political insistence against the financial auditing,” Bifani said at a press conference.

“I ask the person who has dared to question my professionalism: as my direct boss, did you ask me to finalize the auditing or did you order me not to tackle this file and to leave it to your people?” the official added, apparently addressing Saniora.

“I'm the one who rejected intimidation and carried out all my duties,” a defiant Bifani went on to say.

And accusing the ex-PM and former minister of “seeking to sideline the director general in order to control the ministry through his advisers,” Bifani said he exposed one of the advisers who was “transferring the money of pensioners to his personal account.”

“We referring every violation to the inspection and judicial authorities,” the official added.

Referring to a report detailing the state's 1993-2018 financial transactions, Bifani said “those who hate the state do not want us to present this achievement as it is.”

“There is a lot of documented evidence that proves that I maintained my insistence, resisted attempts to frustrate me and managed to form a remarkable team, which showed high neutrality and transparency and carried out what some had considered an impossible or forbidden mission,” the official added.

“We corrected all the accounts and documents,” he said.

“We put an end to the failure to expose the waste of public money, after grants used to be spent without any accountability and after the orders of presidents used to violate laws and decrees,” Bifani boasted.

He added: “We have detected manipulated financial transactions and we demand accountability.”