By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 26 December 2013:
The closure of the oil terminals has caused the state’s income to drop by around 40 . . .[restrict]percent, the Prime Minister has said, and it has resulted in delays to the 2014 budget which is having to be re-planned.
Speaking yesterday, Ali Zeidan said that the government had been forced to take a number of measures to reduce spending. It was also looking at using surplus capital that government departments and institutions held.
He would not negotiate, he insisted, with “the so-called Cyrenaica Political Bureau”; the government did not recognise it, he said.
Those who had closed the oil terminals had betrayed the country, he declared. They had been employed by the government, and it could not sit down and talk with them.
“No matter who rights people want to demand, they have to abide by the law and respect the general rules of state sovereignty” he continued.
He revealed that his government had had discussions with “the families of who closed the oil terminals so as to avoid any social rifts and bloodshed”.
Attempts by the Moghrabi tribe and other groups to resolve the crisis were continuing, he said. They had asked the government, he divulged, to give them more time but that they believed they would achieve a breakthrough soon. [/restrict]
