Government looks at Sirte reconstuction

Tripoli, 21 January 2013:

Deputy Prime Minister Abdussalam Al-Qadi held talks with local councillors and officials in Sirte today, Monday, on rebuilding . . .[restrict]the town, massively damaged during the final battle against the Qaddafi regime in 2011. Accompanied by Undersecretary at the Ministry of Industry Hassan Al-Droui, Qadi met with the heads of the Sirte’s transportation and housing departments and other officials to look at ways of speeding up reconstruction and development and provide better services to local residents.

Qadi, who inspected the town’s power station, seaport and airport, said that the visit was useful in identifying the problems faced by public institutions in Sirte, in particular what needed to be done by foreign companies to help rebuild the infrastructure and economy.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of a peace and national cohesion conference which opened in Sirte today. The conference has been organised by a number of civil society institutions in the town and the University of Sirte in collaboration with the Libyan Centre for Historical Studies. Involving several deputy ministers, together with a number of members of Congress as well as of the former National Transitional Council, the conference is partly a commemoration of the one in Sirte on 21 January, 1922, designed to unite Libyan tribes in the fight against Italian colonialism.

The descendants of two of those at the 1922 gathering were in Sirte for today’s conference —Abdul Latif Ahmad Swehli, grandson of Ahmed Swehli who headed of the delegation of Tripolitanian tribes, and Sheikh Saadi Atyosh, grandson of Sheikh Saleh Atyosh, who headed the delegation of tribes from Cyrenaica.

Also on the sidelines of today’s conference, was a meeting of the Council of Libyan Elders.  They called for the Transitional Justice Act to be issued.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that the bodies of two men believed to have died during the battle for Sirte in 2011 have been found.  DNA samples have been taken to help identification.

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