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By Ajnadin Mustafa.
Tripoli, 24 July 2016:
The Presidency Council has summoned the French ambassador to protest at the presence of French force in Benghazi, according to Ahmed Maetig a PC vice-president. However in Paris today there seemed to be no knowledge of any formal request for the ambassador, Antoine Sivan, to see members of the Serraj administration in Tripoli.
As part of an extended analysis of the challenges facing the PC and the Government of National Accord, Maetig said that there could be no foreign intervention in Libya. The PC was building an army that could tackle internal terrorism as well as defend the country’s borders.
He said that the PC had this week discussed the final shape of the GNA, including appointing deputy ministers and heads of corporations and public institutions. It had scoped their structures and responsibilities and the authority they needed to do their work.
PC members had also looked at the problems of security, power, the shortage of bank notes and the care of internal refugees displaced by the violence.
Maetig said that he was sure that the value of the dinar would recover against the dollar once oil exports resumed. There had been a meeting with the Central Bank and commercial banks to examine the liquidity crisis and the dinar’s plunging value. According the the news agency LANA, Maetig said that the PC had set out plans to end the lack of liquidity and foreign exchange rate. He did not say what those plans were but said the PC was waiting for the responses from the banks.
Maetig said that he and his fellow PC members understood the problems being faced by ordinary Libyans, He reminded media who had come to the Prime Ministry in Tripoli for a press conference yesterday that the PC had fired the old management and board of state electricity company GECOL and replaced them with new executives appointed on a temporary basis.
He said there was a power shortfall of 1,500MW. However the Gulf power station in Sirte was back online and producing around 265MW which he expected would rise to 350MW. Five other plants would also start generating before the end of the month providing anther 350MW. When oil output resumed fully, associated gas from producing fields would fuel an additional 400MW of power.
