By Ahmed Elumami.
Benghazi, 6 October 2013:
Former National Transitional Council member Khaled Al-Sayah who has been nominated by the cabinet to be . . .[restrict]the new interior minister is to meet with members of Congress’ Interior Affairs Committee on Monday.
His nomination has to be approved by the General National Congress.
The post became vacant when Mohamed Al-Sheikh quit in mid-August after four months in the job, complaining of interference in his work by the Congress and other government departments. Since then the first Deputy Prime Minister, Sadiq Abdulkarim, has been acting interior minister.
“The Interior Affairs Committee will meet Al-Sayah on Monday, as he is the only candidate, to discuss his CV,” Abdulhameed Ismael Yarbou, a member of the committee, told the Libya Herald today.
On Tuesday, Al-Sayah will give a presentation to Congress setting out his plans for the Ministry of Interior in the remaining period of time of the “government life”, Yarbou added.
The government’s mandate, like that of Congress, is supposed to run until the end of February.
Sayah shot to international prominence at the beginning of the uprising when he became the spokesman for the revolutionaries.
His nomination may not be plain sailing.
The government’s wish to appoint him has been known for some time. However, last week, the Interior Ministry’s National Security Directorate, which include the police force, put out a statement that it would not accept anyone as interior minister who was “unqualified” for the post. By that was said to mean anyone who had not been a police officer, a military official or someone who had qualified as a lawyer.
There was implicit criticism in the statement of Sadiq Abdulkarim, the acting Interior Minister who was an engineer, with the Directorate saying that it would not celebrate Police Day this year on 8 October to mark their dissatisfaction. [/restrict]
