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By Libya Herald reporters.
Tunis, 3 October 2017:
The World Bank, in concert with outside governments and other institutions, should help set up a fund to pay for urgently-needed repairs to infrastructure, Presidency Council (PC) head Faiez Serraj has said.
There was an interdependence between Libya’s political and economic crises Serraj told World Bank MENA vice-president Hafez Ghanem in Tripoli yesterday. He pressed the bank to hold urgent technical meetings with the Government of National Accord’s (GNA) planning and finance ministers and Libyan experts. The PC needed support to solve what he described as the bottlenecks in terms of cash, water, sanitation, health and power as well as general infrastructure.
Serraj proposed to Ghanem that the World Bank, working with other institutions such as the African Development Bank and the islamic Development Bank as well as national governments, should establish a fund for reconstruction. The PC’s reports of the meeting did not mention any figure that Serraj might have had in mind.
Nor was it made clear where this proposed new fund would sit with the Stabilisation Facility for Libya, a $60 million programme which went live a year ago. This was intended to fund “quick wins” such as the repair of local power transformers, sewerage systems and roads damaged in fighting. A dozen international donors pledged $34 million. The original plan had been for the PC to put in half the money. The programme, whose governing board includes representatives from the PC and UNSMIL, was due to end last month.
