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By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 18 June 2014:
Mohamed Abudena the official spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing and Utilities revealed at a press . . .[restrict]conference yesterday that the Ministry of Housing and Utilities had approved 836 work projects at a value of LD 892 million in the first half of 2014.
Speaking at the first ever press conference by his Ministry, Abudena revealed that it is now the intention of the Ministry to hold regular press conferences so as to publicize its work that often goes unnoticed.
Abudena also revealed that there are a further 873 work projects valued at LD 600 million that are being processed. Another 836 work projects were recently completed, he reported.
The spokesperson was proud to report that all these projects were implemented by Libyan-owned companies.
Nevertheless, he admitted that there were three main challenges to the Ministry’s work. Firstly, the Ministry needed the 2014 budget to be approved by the GNC so as to provide financing. He admitted that even though it was June, which is the second half of the year, his Ministry had not received any money from the 2014 budget.
The second biggest obstacle to the Ministry’s ability to implement its projects is the issue of security. The spokesperson admitted that the murder of the Chinese construction worker in Benghazi last May had meant that the Chinese company was forced to pull out from Libya. He could not confirm whether the Chinese company was planning to return to work soon.
The last main challenge was the internal reorganization of the Ministry which has caused delay and entails readopting the Ministry’s plans, he explained. [/restrict]
