By Sami Zaptia.
London, 14 April 2017:
In a press statement released last night, the Governor of the Tripoli-based Central Bank of Libya (CBL), Saddek Elkaber, accused all the previous six Libyan governments of lying to the public and choosing to use the CBL as a ‘‘scapegoat’’ rather than do their job and implement needed reforms to save the economy.
He blamed the state of Libya’s economic woes on the lack of security and political accord, adding that the CBL does not have the ‘‘magic wand’’ of devaluation, contrary to what the public has been led to believe.
Devaluation should be part of a ‘‘package’’ of reforms, he insisted, rather than the ”painkillers and soothing solutions, which are useless’’, that previous governments had implemented.
He accused armed militias of attempting to coerce him into changing the CBL’s policies and accused ‘’corrupt money’’ of waging a negative media campaign against the CBL.
Kaber accused politicians of ‘‘honeyed promises’’ explaining that he has maintained his media silence by choice. ‘‘I did not master the art of selling and buying words. I am not a permanent guest on your screens. I did not tickle your emotions with honeyed promises that neither fattened nor satisfied your hunger’’.
‘‘I have committed to a painful silence when it was in the interest of the nation, and when the silence was in order to preserve civil peace, so that Libyan bloodsuckers do not exploit any of these statements, and they don’t trade in the citizens and worsen their lives’’.
Ending on an optimistic note, the Tripoli CBL Governor said ”I am confident that the intensified cooperation of the Central Bank and related parties, especially the Presidential Council, will enable us to overcome the crisis and deal with it radically – away from painkillers and soothing solutions, which are useless’’.
However, promising to reveal all in a press conference soon, he warned that what he had said in this statement was just the ‘‘tip of the iceberg’’.
