During a meeting last Wednesday (1 April) at his Tripoli Cabinet Office, Tripoli based Libyan Prime Minister, Abdel Hamid Aldabaiba, discussed with the President of the High State Council, Mohammed Takala, the Unified Development Programme. The meeting also addressed the latest political developments.
With regards to the Unified Development Programme, its importance in bolstering economic stability and directly strengthening the Libyan dinar against foreign currencies was discussed. This, the government report said, would be achieved through supporting organized development spending, stimulating production, and improving resource management efficiency.
Both sides emphasized the importance of continued coordination and consultation to advance the political process and achieve integrated efforts among institutions, ultimately serving the public interest.
The Unified Development Programme
It will be recalled that the US had brokered in secret meetings in Tunisia a Unified Development Programme where both Libya’s governments would confine their public spending to within an agreed, unified budget that limits itself to Libya’s actual annual revenues.
Earlier meetings
It will be recalled that on 26 March his year, the Tripoli-based Minister of Transport and Financial Advisor to Prime Minister Aldabaiba, Mohamed Al-Shahoubi, met with the Chargé d’affaires of the US Embassy, Jeremy Berndt.
The Unified Development Programme
The Tripoli meeting focused on the importance of the Unified Development Programme for enhancing financial stability and unifying public spending, in addition to improving resource management efficiency, which will positively impact the improvement of basic services and accelerate development in various regions.
Brendt’s earlier meeting with Hafters
It will also be recalled that Brendt had reported on 25 March this year that he had met with the Hafters in Benghazi where he had stressed the importance of the two Libyan western and eastern authorities implementing the Unified Development Spending Programme agreement, previously brokered by the US in Tunis, and establishing a unified budget.
Hafters backtracking on Unified Development Agreement?
However, in a cleverly coordinated PR stunt in the middle of March this year, Belgasem Khalifa Haftar, in his role as the Director General of the Libya Development and Reconstruction Fund, son of the ageing military strongman in control of eastern, central and most of southern Libya, stressed to a gathering of eastern and central Libyan tribal leaders the need to continue public spending on development and reconstruction.
He stressed that public development spending should be continuous and increasing every year. He said to his sympathetic audience “just give me the money and then hold me accountable’’.
Similarly, on 31 March this year Belgasem Khalifa Hafter reiterated that he would not adhere to a cut in public spending on development projects.
Hafter was speaking again in his role as the head of the eastern based Libyan Development and Reconstruction Fund. The Fund has spent billions in development and reconstruction projects mainly in Sirte, Benghazi and Derna. The Fund has reconstructed the Storm Daniel-destroyed Derna in record speed. The spending has been rubber-stamped by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ageela Saleh.
However, there is no honest oversight or political accountability of the spending by the Hafters. Moreover, there is no fiscal control with regards to spending within Libya’s actual annual oil revenues. Libya has been running on an annually recurring hard currency budget deficit for years. This has been covered by the Tripoli Central Bank of Libya from its hard currency reserves and investments.
This uncontrolled public spending by both the western and eastern regimes (dubbed as an unending publicly sponsored election campaign by critics) is seen as the main contributor to the devaluation of the Libyan dinar on the foreign exchange black-market. This loss of value in the dinar has hit the standards of living of Libyans hard – leading to demonstrations during the fasting month of Ramadan.
The 1 April Aldabaiba-Takala meeting is seen in the context of these earlier meetings and pronouncements and as a way of exerting further public pressure on the Hafter family in the east of Libya who seem to be attempting to wriggle out of the Unified Development Programme.
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