By Libya Herald staff.
Benghazi, 2 October 2014:
Benghazi Municipal councillor Awad Alqawiri has resigned from the council, accusing the mayor and other . . .[restrict]members of incompetence and not facing up to the crisis in the city.
Dr Alqawiri, who topped the ballot in the municipal elections in April with 12,120 votes, has played a prominent role in the city in his position as chairman of its hospitals association, trying to ensure that hospitals are not taken over by militias, specifically Ansar Al-Sharia, and remain open to all residents.
He failed to be elected mayor of Benghazi in July amid allegations that that Muslim Brotherhood forced the election of Tariq Al-Urfi who had come fifth with 961 votes.
At a press conference yesterday evening at which Alqawiri apologised to those who had elected him for standing down. He said he had tried to do his best to serve the city but that “a serious lobby wants to control and impose a single opinion in the Council”.
In particular, he criticised members of the crisis committee set up to deal with Benghazi’s urgent political and social issues, in particular its vice chairman. They had no experience of crisis management, he said.
He also criticised the amount of money that that government has allocated for dealing with the city’s crisis, notably its displaced people, hospital services and electricity outages. It had been given a million dinars. But it needed “at least LD 50 million”. Twenty one million alone was needed for urgent rebuilding works in Buatni and Benina, he said.
The council was playing games with Benghazi’s residents, he claimed, and while the government wanted to help it was not providing the means. He could not work in such circumstances, he said. [/restrict]
