What was wrong with the 2020 Lazard Plan?

Introduction by Executive Editors When the Council of Ministers approved an economic reform program at the end of April, 2020, then-Prime Minister Hassan Diab hailed the plan with the epithet that ”the State has in its possession, for the first time in history, a complete and integrated financial plan.”However, Diab’s optimistic assurance that this document, based on a study prepared for the Lebanese government by US-headquartered financial advisory firm Lazard, would “put an end to floundering financial policies that brought the country to the current state of collapse” was disputed long before the cabinet’s resignation in the aftermath of the August 4, 2020 Beirut Port explosion. Diverse voices, from the banking industry to economists, academics, and economic media, offered critical responses, amendments, and counter proposals to the government rescue plan from the moment of its release. In one, from today’s vantage point ironic, example, a document by various authors at the