By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 29 August 2013:
Speaking at Wednesday’s (28th August) press conference, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan revealed that his government had . . .[restrict]formed a “regional tendering committee”.
Zeidan said that this mechanism would serve as an “anti-centralization measure” too enabling some devolution of power and decision-making from central government to the regions.
The Prime Minister said that he hoped that the move would enable “the regions to take care of their own affairs”.
Zeidan has been making some efforts during his Prime Ministership to counter the anti central government (Tripoli) tide. The most obvious and challenging of this are the calls by a vocal group in Cyrenaica for a federal system.
Zeidan said on Wednesday that this is federalist group is a small group that does not represent the majority of those living in Cyrenaica.
At his press conference of 14 August Zeidan had announced that all government Ministries were to open branches in Libya’s second city, Benghazi. He had also announced that these branches must become active, providing services for local inhabitants so that they would not need to travel to Tripoli in order to obtain needed services.
Zeidan had also revealed that the Benghazi branch of the Prime Minister’s office would provide oversight over these Ministerial branches. [/restrict]