Tripoli, 3 August:
A programme has been launched to compensate various public sector employees who had taxes deducted from their salaries at . . .[restrict]an estimated monthly rate of 1.5 percent between 1986 and 2000.
Muhammed Salabi, the director of the programme, stated that compensation was by way of giving employees shares in National Investment Company (NIC) which had been listed on the Libyan Stock Exchange.
Accoring to Sallabi, the stock market had received a first list containing 188,000 of employees’ names.
He explained that each employee would first have to check if his or her name were on the list before being allocated an investor’s code number and then signing a “custodian agreement” under which the employee becomes the rightful owner of the shares and thus able to dispose of them as he or she sees fit.
Salabi said that the shares would remain frozen until individuals, or their heirs, claimed them, adding that some people had already been to the stock exchange to check the value of the shares they were owed. Others had already taken ownership of their shares.
He expressed concern that some employees were unfamiliar with the process. Many people, he said, had demanded to be given their shares in cash, an impossibility because that is not the stock market’s job.
He also said that those who thought they were be due payment had to check their employer had informed the National Investment Company of their name and the amount that had been deducted in tax. [/restrict]
