By Sami Zaptia.
London, 1 January 2017:
The Serraj-led Government of National Accord (GNA) has approved LD 18 million of spending from its recently agreed Emergency ‘‘budget’’.
Decree 629 of 2016 dated 29 December has approved LD 10 million to Benghazi University upon the recommendation of the Ministry of Finance contained in a letter dated 21 December 2016.
The letter recommends that the amount is granted to the university in view of the ‘‘destruction suffered’’ by the University due to ‘’terrorist groups’’, including the destruction of its stores of its teaching aids.
The Water Desalination Company of Tobruk was also granted LD 8 million through GNA decree 631 of 2016 dated 29 December from the Emergency ‘’budget’’.
This was in order to solve the drinking water shortage in Tobruk due to the lack of maintenance of the local water desalination plant which processes 36,000 cubic meters of water per day. The city’s total water consumption is about 150,000 cubic meters per day.
It is notable that both these allocations by the Tripoli-based GNA, the first from the controversial 2017 ‘’budget’’, were made to eastern-based recipients.
It is worth noting that according to standing Libyan law, the budget can only be approved by the legislature, the House of Representatives (HoR) based in Tobruk. The HoR has declared the GNA ‘’budget’’ as unconstitutional.
