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By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 16 January:
The Libyan Businessmen Council’s forum in Tripoli on Tuesday entitled the Economic Forum between the Business Sector and the GNC and Government – The Role of the Financial Sector in Raising the Libyan Economic Sector provided not exactly the type of dialogue between officials and businessmen that the organisers had planned.
The forum was attended by the Minister of Economy, the Minister of Finance and the Central Bank of Libya Governor, Saddek Elkaber, amongst others.
The meeting, of over 200 people, proved to be a very heated affair as the business community queued up to express their frustrations at the slow pace of economic reform. In the case of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) Governor, speakers felt that his policy on foreign currency transfer was in fact a backward step.
The meeting started with the routine protocol type speeches by the VIPs after which the Economy and Finance Ministers excused themselves due to other commitments.
It was this early exit by the ministers that signaled the early deterioration of the whole meeting. Members of the business community said they were led to believe that the Minister was going to stay on to receive some questions and comments — and report on progress.
Rashid Sawan owner of a mineral water bottling factory for leading brands al-Zahra and Annada was the most vocal in expressing his displeasure.
‘’We put the government there thanks to the Revolution”, he shouted angrily at the stage. “The government is supposed to be here to represent our views and our ideas and policies. I am totally upset by the Minister’s short appearance. We did not come here for nothing”.
“We did not come here to this meeting today just to hear his short protocol speech”. He turned to his fellow business people and condemned them for remaining in their seats and not walking out – before promptly walking out himself leading a small group of business people out of the forum.
Another businessman, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Libya Herald “we were expecting some new announcements. Some new policies or some new reforms of the existing business laws. How long must we wait for progress? I am not surprised that the business community is getting frustrated. We are still forced to operate under the old socialist laws which are holding us back and time is passing. How long must we wait?”
Another said ”we expected to take part in a detailed question-and-answer session with the Minister (of Economy). We were surprised when he left so quickly. I blame the Libyan Business Council. They should have insisted he stayed. Some businessmen felt insulted that he would not stay and listen to them.”
The organisers tried to continue with the meeting and gave the opportunity to various personalities to amke a short speech.
Juma Gamaty head of the Tagheer (change) Party in his brief word stressed that “It’s not the government’s role to run and operate various sectors of the economy. It should be for the private sector. The state should withdraw from these sectors. It’s the private sector that will build the business sector in Libya – not the state.”
CBL Governor Saddek Elkaber said in his introduction that the CBL’s “role is to facilitate the banking environment for the private sector.”
However, speakers immediately cut him off, complained to him about the continued bureaucracy, red tape and the time it takes for banking procedures and processes.
Customers should not have to queue to pay their money into a bank in this day and age complained another. Yet another complained about the very poor quality and standard of service received from all banks in Libya to corporate clients.
Speakers asked the CBL Governor to urgently reform the banking sector so that it improves or increases the banking services and products it offers its clients on a par to those more sophisticated offerings in more developed economies.
Ramadan Zabtia, owner of Zagrit, one of the leading and longest established importers of vegetable seeds into Libya complained bitterly to the Governor about the whole process and procedures of opening of letters of credit for his imports. He complained about the banking services and charges, and the changing rules at the ports and requirements of paperwork and asked that all the authorities along the import chain be made clearly aware of CBL documentation requirements.
Other business people complained, in very strong tones and at times shouting down the Governor, about the fact that the official transfer of foreign currency from official company bank accounts was still banned.
By this stage the organisers appeared to be losing control of proceedings as the business community were overwhelming them with demands to speak.
They complained to Libya Herald that Libya was still earning at the same rate as at any time of its history. It was still producing oil at about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day and that the international crude oil price was still above $100.
They said they could not understand why the Governor was blocking bank transfers except for theoretically a short list of certain products. They found a conflict in what the government was saying. On the one hand it was saying it was in full support of private sector business and that it wanted to develop the Libyan economy – an economy that relies on importing nearly everything it consumes. Yet on the other hand it bans bank transfers.
Speakers felt that Libya had passed its post-conflict period after liberation and that the early problems of liquidity problems were long over. They did not feel there was a crisis anymore to justify foreign currency transfer restrictions. They likened the restrictions to the dark socialist-dictatorial days of the Qaddafi regime. They could not understand why the CBL Governor was still keeping them in place.
At any rate they saw the transfer ban as further encouraging the black market transfer of money – a practice that the state is attempting to discourage.
Regarding the ban on foreign currency transfers the CBL Governor held up a thick file saying “look at the number of companies that have transferred money without producing documentary evidence that goods have entered Libya in return.” He then appealed to the business community to cooperate with CBL regulations by furnishing documents to prove that they have actually imported goods in justification for their bank transfers.
The business community were unconvinced. They felt the CBL was punishing the innocent and law-abiding companies which were the majority – for the acts of a minority.
On the slow and poor banking services, the Governor said that banks “plan to shortly improve the human resources of the banking sector. We are encouraging banks to increase ATM/cashpoint machines to reduce crowding”.
On another note, some business people complained that the LBC would not allow access to the meeting except for LBC paid up members. There were complaints that the meeting was for “big business” and that it excluded SMEs and that the reforms put forward represented the interests of well established business – not SMEs.
By lunch time most business people had departed early, unconvinced and unhappy at what they were hearing from the authorities. [/restrict]
