A meeting was held last Monday (16 February) at the Commercial Registry Authority to discuss mechanisms for activating the “One-Stop Shop” system, in implementation of the Prime Minister’s directives to simplify company registration procedures and improve the business environment.
The meeting was attended by the Head of the Commercial Registry Authority, the Director General of the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB), and several directors of relevant departments.
Attendees discussed the mechanism for consolidating the entities responsible for issuing licenses and registering companies in one location, in accordance with Law No. 23 of 2010, to ensure the swift and transparent completion of procedures.
The meeting also reviewed the readiness of the Authority’s digital infrastructure and its potential integration with the One-Stop Shop project to standardize procedures and reduce complexities, thereby contributing to faster transactions and enhanced investor confidence.
Comment
It must be recalled that Libyan regimes have been vowing to speed up the process of company registration since the Qaddafi regime during the ‘reform’ period of Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi – without success.
The reform was aimed at improving the ‘‘doing business in Libya’’ environment and at helping youth become more entrepreneurial and move away from state-sector jobs. In turn, the youth would create more jobs, unburden state budgets from paying for unproductive salaries, and activate both the private business sector and the whole economy.
A corrupt bureaucracy is unwilling to reform itself
The reality is that corrupt Libyan politicians and bureaucrats are unwilling to reform a bureaucracy that feeds them. The number of documents required and locations that must be visited to form a company means that many either give up on the process or pay a bribe to short-circuit the system.
Worse still, many work in the shadow/black economy, remaining a micro-business by buying and selling in cash only.
It is in the vested interest of many in the current system to keep company registration – like many other Libyan processes related to state authorities – bureaucratic.
