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By Sami Zaptia.
London, 20 April 2021:
The HoR held a session in Tobruk yesterday to discuss the 2021 LD 96 billion budget presented by prime minister Abd Alhamid Aldabaiba on 17 March. According to the HoR’s Official Spokesperson, Abdalla Belheeg, 97 members attended.
Spokesperson Belheeg, reported that the session was devoted to discussing the detailed report prepared by the HoR’s Planning, Finance and Budget Committee.
He said the Committee’s report included a large number of observations, comments and reservations about the draft budget.
Belheeg stated that the budget comments and the amendment recommendations that reached thirty recommendations by the Budget Committee were discussed in a general manner. He said that discussions and deliberations were not completed in yesterday’s session, and the session was suspended until today afternoon.
Analysis
The main opposition to the 2021 LD 96 billion budget presented by prime minister Abd Alhamid Aldabaiba were:
- The LD 96 billion 2021 budget is large for the main aims of the Aldabaiba government.
- The Aldabaiba government is in office only until 24 December and cannot justify such a large budget.
- The Aldabaiba government should concentrate on very short term aims.
- The Aldabaiba government does not have enough time in office to spend the budget safely and effectively.
- In the view of several HoR critics of the size of the budget, Aldabaiba’s government’s main focus is/should be a/preparing for the 24 December elections; b/unifying state institutions; c/conducting national reconciliation.
- A large budget may negatively affect the value of the Libyan dinar in the future.
- A devalued dinar will negatively affect most Libyan people who are on state-sector salaries and therefore a large budget does not serve their interests.
- The budget contains several errors and ambiguities and needs amending.
- The budget has legal errors that conflict with existing laws/budget law.
2021 budget of LD 96 billion proposed by GNU to parliament | (libyaherald.com)
