my recent article about talal abu ghazaleh had many mixed reactions – some brought back memories of others, most of them painful, especially contemporary memories of the 1970s.
i received responses from senior businessmen and politicians, both current and former about the time when the accounting office of abughazaleh was at its peak after the ‘seniors’ left the field specifically after the issuance of a decree by law – which some said he was behind it – when the government forbid the establishment of any new accounting office even for qualified senior accountants and state employees unless they passed a difficult accounting test. certainly it was difficult for those who have not practiced the profession for many years, such as a university professor or undersecretary for example.
one of them said in a message he lived in kuwait in the 1970s and left the country during invasion and occupation, and saw the man at the peak of his success, and how he managed to attract almost all clients of saba & co. for the benefit of his new office, although there is nothing wrong with that, of course.
he added, one day abu ghazaleh made an announcement of his donation to rebuild a building at the american university of beirut, which led the administration to put a ‘sign’ bearing his name, and when he did not keep his promise, the sign was removed but he had achieved the purpose in the form of propaganda.
another claimed that abu ghazaleh was behind the idea of establishing closed companies and the economic feasibility studies were ready for any project. it was only necessary to change the name of the new project and ready the names of new founders. it was said that he was very lenient with the subject of detailing the budgets of the companies he audited, often according to the client’s desire, and played a negative role which resulted in the then souk al-manakh stock market crash.
all these things may not be true or important, but i cannot believe that a man of the size and age of abu ghazaleh promotes allegations that have nothing to do with the ground of reality such as saying the us had announced on aug 14, 2019, that recession was at the doorstep, and everybody knows that such news is disastrous for the economy of any country, and for the entire world.
in a report published by the associated press on aug 26, 2019, 74% of the us businessmen and economists appear not worried about the dangers of some of donald trump’s economic policies and expect a recession by the end of 2021.
perhaps nothing will happen and this is not our subject, but we are concerned about the serious claim that america is already entering recession. in an effort to avoid this, mr talal, thankfully, sent me an email thanking me for what i wrote in the introduction to my article and completely ignored what i said at the end of the article.
he added that he does not claim to know the truth, and that he mentioned mere expectations based on studies and views. i was thankful for his quick response and i did not talk in my article about his expectations, everybody has the right to predict. as an investor in the european and american markets, i was concerned with the credibility of the us announcement on 14/8/2019 that it is entering recession.
this is not true, and far from reality, not to mention its dangerous impact on the markets, and i asked him in my letter to either show the source of his information, or to apologize, and this is the quality of the renowned personality but he continued to elude, saying that tomorrow is not so far away as if i were different with him on tomorrow, not on the authenticity of the source of his news.