By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 23 April 2015:
Munir Aser, Minister of Economy and Industry, said that the government spent over LD 2 . . .[restrict]bn on subsidizes food stuffs and that his Ministry is owed LD 1.5 bn by the Price Stabilization Fund (PSF) for foods and flour.
The PSF is the state fund that pays for the state-subsidized staple food stuffs.
Aser said that while other issues were able to withstand delay, the issue of flour and bread could not withstand delay.
In view of the unavailability of an official state or Ministerial budget, the government contracted on credit terms, in order to make available a strategic reserve of flour.
The flour and bread crises has now been surpassed and the government in the east now has 56,000 tons of flour unloading in ports, Aser revealed during the government’s Monday press conference in Al-Beida.
In reply to a question from the media, Aser said that a large number of bakeries were still closed despite the availability of flour because of either power cuts, a shortage of labour (foreign workers) and that some bakeries were fake fronts engaged in the black-market trade of subsidized flour.
These fake bakeries had been shut down, explained the Minister. [/restrict]
