By Jamal Adel
Tripoli, 2 April 2014:
Members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) who have been supporting Ibrahim Jadhran and . . .[restrict]blockading Libya’s oil terminals since July were still being paid until the end of November, according to the PFG’s spokesman Waleed Al-Tarhouni.
Payment of outstanding salaries and bonuses for his PFG supporters is one of Ibrahim Jadhran’s demands in negotiations to reopen the terminals currently taking place in Brega between himself and the government.
Meanwhile, the head of the PFG in Libya, Brigadier Idris Bukhamada, has said that members who halt production or close pipelines and terminals in pursuit of their own agendas will be held legally accountable. Condemning those involved in illegal activities, he insisted that the organisation was non-partisan and did not involve itself in regional, tribal or party issues.
“We refrain from having political or tribal links,” Tarhouni told the Libya Herald.
“Those who have acted illegally will be pursued by the law and charged,” he warned. “They are only representing themselves, not the PFG administration” he said. He also indicated that Jadhran’s supporters and the Zintani PFG members who shut down the gas pipeline from the Wafa field last week were now considered sacked.
“Those who have been blockading the oil ports in the east and pipelines in the south don’t represent the PFG and they are not part in the PFG since they’ve ignored orders,” he said.
“It’s unacceptable to blockade roads, airports, oil ports and oil ports and then demand for political or economic rewards”, he declared.
Tarhouni also disclosed that, in fact, no members of the PFG have been paid in February or March, and that the organisation had received no funding from the government in March. [/restrict]