Tripoli, 13 May:
An official in the Prime Minister’s office has dismissed reports that the Minister of Finance, Hassan Zaglam, intends to . . .[restrict]resign. “The Finance Minister will not be resigning” the official insisted, but asked not to be named.
In an interview on Thursday with Reuters, published Zaglam was quoted as saying that he would resign soon due to the waste of public money.
“I will resign. I can’t keep working in these circumstances,” he told Reuters in an interview. “There is a wastage of public money because nobody fears God.”
The minister gave as an example of money being wasted and the chaotic administration of the payout to last year’s revolutionaries.
The scheme was temporarily suspended on 9 April after it emerged that more than LD 1.8 billion had been paid out and that many fraudulent claims had been made. “I stopped the payment of 1.3 billion dinars,” Zaglam was quoted as saying.
The scheme was then reactivated with new rules. Even so, it is reported that when payments are paid into the remaining applicants’ bank accounts by 26 May, a futher LD 1 billlion will have been disbursed.
The deadline for applications passed on 7 May.
Interviewed just two days after a guard was killed outside the prime minister’s office during violent protests over the payout, Zaglam also cited insecurity as another reason for giving up.
“They came two days ago with weapons,” Ziglam said. “How can you work in such an environment?”
He is not the only minister to have expressed exasperation at the conditions under which the government operates. More than one has told Libya Herald off the record that he wanted to resign. So far none have.
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