By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 12 August 2017:
Mohamed Dayri, foreign minister in the Beida-based interim government, says that diplomats who work with him rather than the Tripoli foreign ministry are not being paid.
Confirming this to the Libya Herald, he said that pro-Beida diplomats in Cairo, Moscow, Amman, Abu Dhabi the Seychelles, Iran, Mexico and Nicaragua had not been paid. There had been problems with payments to many embassies regardless of which side they supported, he noted, but payments had now been made to many but only those that supported the Presidency Council in Tripoli.
Three of the embassies – those in Moscow, Amman and Cairo – are “mixed”, that is that that there are some diplomats there who report to the Tripoli foreign ministry and others who report to Dayri, although in all three cases, the heads of mission support the PC. Those in these missions who back the PC are being paid, it appears.
Not all pro-Tripoli diplomats are receiving their salaries, however.
The ambassador in Bahrain, Fawzi Abdulal, is reported to have complained to Tripoli foreign minister Mohamed Siala that his diplomatic staff had not been paid for over a year, that the number of local employees had had to be cut and that they too had not been paid for over ten months. He added that the electricity bills had not been paid and that suppliers and others owed money, including hospitals and the owner of the building which the embassy rents, were threatening to go to court to try and recover the debts.
