By Sami Zaptia.
London, 22 February 2016:
The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) has today confirmed the activation of its foreign exchange control system . . .[restrict]set up to monitor all bank foreign exchange activities.
The CBL said that the system went into operation on the morning of 14th February for seven local commercial banks and financial services companies. As part of the policy, the CBL said that a number of bank employees were also put on a training programme.
The new monitoring system is linked to the National ID number and aims to track foreign currency transactions on MoneyGram, Western Union or debit cards. The system has also been set up so as to ensure accessibility throughout Libya regardless of geographical locations.
The monitoring system was set up to enable the CBL to better monitor its foreign currency reserves in view of corruption in the foreign exchange sector. This corruption has been driven by both the shortage of foreign currency availability due to Libya’s reduced (hard currency) oil revenues and the hike in the black market exchange rate of hard currencies against the Libyan dinar.
These have been compounded by political and security instability and straight forward unchecked corruption aided by weak state institutions, including the police and judiciary. [/restrict]
