Tripoli based Libyan Prime Minister, Abd Alhamid Aldabaiba, rejected any parallel paths of public spending outside the legal frameworks.
Aldabaiba was responding to the Benghazi based House of Representatives approving on 2 June a budget of LD 69 billion over 3 years (2025 to 2027) for the Libya Development and Reconstruction Fund. The Fund is controlled by the Hafter family and is exempt from any administrative and financial oversight.
Aldabaiba was speaking during a meeting at his Tripoli Cabinet Office last Monday (2 June) with several members of the High State Council, ‘‘to discuss ongoing political and economic developments, and follow up on the government’s project to extend stability, unify institutions, and protect the national economy from parallel financial tampering’’.
During the meeting, Aldabaiba stressed the government’s categorical rejection of any parallel paths of public spending outside the legal frameworks, warning that these practices impose huge financial burdens on the state that are spent in unreal doors, and then re-compensated through public debt, which practically means a deduction from the citizen’s pocket and an actual reduction in the value of his income.
The Prime Minister stressed that the Libyan citizen will not benefit from projects implemented at double prices outside the unified financial system, saying: “What is the use of projects if they are implemented at double prices and deducted from the citizen’s pocket through the public debt?!”
In this context, Aldabaiba called on the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ageela Saleh, to disclose the fate of more than 100 billion dinars spent outside the Public Budget during the past two years, stressing that this demand does not come only as a matter of transparency, but as a direct result of the deterioration caused by this spending in the value of the Libyan dinar, and serious repercussions on the citizen’s income and market confidence.
The Prime Minister also pointed out that a number of economic experts warned that the adoption of a parallel budget, despite its legal violation, would lead directly to a rise in the exchange rate of the dollar in the parallel market, as a result of the imbalance of financial confidence and increased pressure on reserves, which negatively affects the stability of the currency and the standard of living of citizens.
Aldabaiba concluded the meeting by stressing that the national and legal responsibility falls on all institutions to stop this financial haemorrhage, defend the unity of public finances, and maintain the stability of the economy and the Libyan dinar.
