By Karim Gargum.
Henry Ford, the famous pioneer of the model-T car and modern assembly manufacturing famously said “If I had asked . . .[restrict]people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. This statement is amusing but it contains an important insight. When it came to solving the challenges of transportation people weren’t looking at their entire transport system, instead they focused on improving the variable they were familiar with, the horse. They were focused on replacing the horses they had with faster, better horses.
Fast forward to Libya, present day. The ‘Isolation Law’ is dominating the political debate. Depending on it passing and on the final format it takes, it will have significant implications for the Libyan government and tens of government agencies, and state owned enterprises. Without getting into the nitty gritty of the law itself, it can’t be denied that the law taps into a core sentiment felt by the Libyan public. A clear notion that those who were responsible for corruption, embezzlement and rights abuses in the past should have no place in the future Libya. I believe this is worthy sentiment however it only partially addresses the problem. Like Ford’s ‘faster horses’ this approach only focuses on one variable, the people in charge before and replacing them with better, more honest people today. But what about the overall system?
Take a quick look at the website of the Libyan Investment Authority . It has been in a constant state of ‘under construction’ for the past few years. Would it really be too much to expect this multi-billion dollar organisation to spend the time to create a complete website with the required information and documents regarding their operations? Compare it for example to the website of the Norwegian government pension fund that shows the total value of the fund in real time on their homepage. It’s no wonder that the Libyan Investment Authority fund scores a low 1/10 on a transparency index created by the Sovereign Wealth Fund institute. The same story plays out on the website of the GNC (Libya’s Legislature). There is no list of the elected members of the GNC, no comprehensive list of the laws passed and other key information such as voting records are also missing. Add to that a recent decision by Libya’s key oil company, the NOC, not to publish the details of various dealings and trades. The ‘system’ in Libya clearly doesn’t place a high emphasis on transparency.
The problems go beyond the opaque nature of government agencies, the convoluted and overly bureaucratic structures of Libya’s state owned companies and various investment funds exacerbate underperformance and corruption. This confusion extends to the power struggle between the GNC and the PM, a symptom of their poorly defined roles. The final ingredients in this atonal symphony of disorganisation are the lack of accurate, electronic records for state employees which allow for salary abuses and the huge state subsidies for food stuffs and petrol that drive smuggling and the import of sub-standard goods.
Perhaps if we just got the right people in the right place all the problems would be solved? It’s doubtful. Post-Qaddafi Libya has already been plagued with scandals of misconduct and corruption, including scandals over payments for medical treatment of the war wounded, pay outs to ex-freedom fighters and the five billion dinars the GNC head Mohamed Magarief accused former Prime Minister Abdurrahim Al-Kib of misspending. In keeping with the ‘Fordian’ theme, faster (better) horses alone aren’t a guarantee of improvement. The challenge faced by the current and previous transitional governments is largely caused by a dysfunctional system inherited from the Qaddafi era, a point often raised by the current Prime Minister Ali Zeidan.
Although the government has taken steps to address this, the national ID card being one key example, a concerted effort from both legislative and executive branches is required to tackle this issue at its heart. If not, we will see the same patterns of corruption and abuse repeated over and over again in the future. We can replace the people, but if the systems created and broken by the previous regime remain in their current state this approach will always be limited.
Just like Ford’s shift to automobiles gave birth to a new system and a revolution in transportation and industry, Libya must replace the core systems which enabled and encouraged abuses in the past to build a better Libya for the future.
Karim Gargum is a London-based Libyan Internet entrepreneur
The views expressed in Opinion articles do not necessarily reflect those of the Libya Herald [/restrict]
