By Sami Zaptia
Tripoli, 26 July:
According to article No. 30 of the Transitional Constitutional Declaration (TCD), the National Transitional Council (NTC), Libya’s . . .[restrict]supreme legislature will be dissolved at the first convening of the newly elected General National Congress (GNC).
The High National Election Commission (HNEC) had announced on 19 July at its final reading of the transitional election results that these results would become final after 14 days of appeal – or 1st August.
The TCD was announced in Benghazi on 3 August 2011, and it is the document that has set out the roadmap to democracy in Libya. It is the social contract between the NTC and the Libyan public. It represents the set of promises that the NTC, Libya’s self appointed and hence none elected temporary rulers, had made to the Libyan public in order to gain and maintain their support during the 17 February Revolution. It is also what is meant to distinguish it from its predecessor – the unrepresentative dictatorial regime.
There have been many questions about the exact process of the hand over to the GNC, and especially with regards to matters of accountability and transparency. There is a fear that many issues would fall in between the cracks, so to speak, and that the Libyan public would be left to pay the ultimate bill, as has been the case over the last 4 decades.
Salah Jouda, independent GNC member-elect for Benghazi is of the view that the GNC should not accept responsibility until the NTC and the Kib government had handed-over detailed reports of their activities and specifically financial expenditures – prior to the GNC accepting handover.
Jouda, speaking on Libya Alahrar satellite TV just after the elections, was keen that there was transparency in the accounts of the NTC and the Al-Kib government, and was not keen that the GNC was left holding the baby, so to speak, with regards to non-transparent accounting.
Yesterday, the official press conference, Libya Herald put this question to both the government’s official spokesperson, Nasser Al-Mana and the Finance Minister Hassan Zaglam.
Al-Mana confirmed without giving too much detail that there will be an official hand over process. He also explained that the NTC had set up a series of hand over committees well over a month ago, to prepare final reports for the GNC. The NTC also set up a Supreme or High Hand-over Committee to oversee these various sub-committees, he confirmed.
Equally, he revealed that the Transitional Government of Al-Kib has been preparing for over a month hand-over reports as well as every government department preparing general final reports to their successors.
Moreover, Al-Mana confirmed that the GNC had the full right to demand details from the outgoing administration prior to accepting the hand-over.
Answering my direct question, Finance Minister Zaglam commented that is known and expected that there will be an official hand-over process for every new minister. Zaglam said that that was the exact procedure by which he had accepted the hand-over from his predecessor Ali Tarhuni. We sign an official report of hand-over so that if anything were to come up that was not included in the official final report, responsibility cannot be accepted by the incoming minister.
I expect that I will do exactly the same when I hand-over to my successor, Finance Minister Zaglam concluded. [/restrict]
