Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacco.

My guest today is currently in political limbo.

Nominally, Raul Neme is still Lebanon's Minister of Economy and Trade.

But he, like the Prime Minister and all his colleagues, resigned a week after the mega explosion, which devastated much of Beirut,

taking more than 200 lives and bringing in the country perilously close to total collapse.

Across Lebanon, grief and anger have become a powerful cocktail.

People want accountability, not just for those ultimately

responsible for the storage of highly explosive materials in the city's port, but for those

warlords, oligarchs and sectarian bosses who have milked the nation dry, enriching themselves

and their cronies while turning Lebanon into

a failed state in all but name. It is easy to blame others, but who in Lebanon is prepared

to tell the truth about their own responsibility as a first step to a better future? Well, Raul Nemi joins me now on the line from Beirut.

Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you. Thank you.

Your country is going through an unparalleled crisis.

And I have to ask you a very simple question.

Does Lebanon have a government today or not?

Lebanon has a caretaker government, which means that the Council of Ministers cannot meet and take any

decision. There are very few exceptions, basically if there is an emergency, an earthquake,

and then we need to take some decisions, then yes, we can do it.

Each minister on its own can take only basic decisions, administrative decisions,

cannot spend money, can not engage the government in the long term and so on.

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