The Attorney General’s Office reported yesterday that the Public Prosecutor’s Office has ordered the detention of the Tripoli based Acting Minister of Education, Ali Al-Abed, and the Director General of the Curriculum and Educational Research Centre.
The Attorney General’s Office reported that the Public Prosecutor’s Office investigated the contracting procedures for printing textbooks for the 2025/2026 academic year. The investigation revealed irregularities in the administrative and financial procedures related to the signed contracts, as well as negligence in the obligation to provide textbooks to two million students within the timeframe stipulated in the approved education strategy.
Consequently, the investigator ordered their detention pending further investigation for harming the public interest and violating the right to education.
Background
It will be recalled that there has been the wide perception over the decades, going back to the Qaddafi era, that there is corruption linked to the printing locally or abroad / distribution of Libya’s school textbooks.
At the end of this October, during a television interview on Libya’s state Libya Al-Wataniya TV Channel, Acting Minister of Education, Ali Al-Abed (whose main job is Minister of Labour and Rehabilitation), revealed that there was huge corruption surrounding the printing/delivery of this academic year’s school textbooks.
Corruption in the printing of schoolbooks discovered
Answering the almost perennial question of why had school textbooks not arrived at state schools yet – Al-Abed, who only took up his post as Acting Education Minister after his predecessor was sacked and finally sentenced to three and a half months imprisonment in March this year, said the delay in the delivery of schoolbooks across the country has been as a result of a delay in their distribution and not a delay in their printing.
He admitted that the delay in distribution is a premeditated act by those who have lost out in the printing of the schoolbooks locally as opposed to abroad.
Ironically, he had revealed that the Attorney General has detained many who are either under investigation or awaiting trial in this matter.
The Acting Education Minister revealed that LD 400 million used to be spent on printing school textbooks abroad and that this figure included much corruption. However, after investigation it was discovered that in reality only about LD 217 million was needed to print the school textbooks locally. This could reach around LD 250 million with delivery, storage etc.
He revealed that there has been much resistance by vested interests to printing it at a lower price and locally, including delaying the timely delivery of the books.
Appeal Court sentences former Education Minister in March 2025 to three years and six months
It will be recalled that in March this year, despite the Appeal Court sentencing the Tripoli based Minister of Education Musa Almagarief to three years and six months in jail for corrupt contracting procedures for the printing and supply of school textbooks, he was allowed to roam free in his hometown. Tripoli PM Aldabaiba had chosen not to lift his Ministerial immunity.
”Acting” Ministers
Aldabaiba had also appointed Al-Abed as Acting Minister for Civil Services. His detention or eventual conviction, if upheld, would create a huge headache for PM Aldabaiba as he would have to appoint three new Acting Ministers. Purportedly, only the eastern based Libyan parliament, the House of Representatives – HoR, can appoint a minister. Due to his political fallout with the HoR, this is the reason Aldabaiba has been using ”Acting” Ministers, such as the current Acting Minister of Oil and Gas, to fill his vacant ministerial jobs.
.
