Exclusive interview with PM of Libya interim govt

(16 Oct 2019) The prime minister of Libya's eastern interim government, Abdullah al-Thani, has confirmed that the Libyan House of Representatives (HoR) doesn't recognize the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli.

In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press, he explained that the GNA, which emerged from the Skhirat agreement in 2015, had submitted itself more than once to the House of Representatives but was not given a vote of confidence.

He said that the international community had sided with the GNA and gave it legitimacy.

This allowed the GNA to spend oil revenues and other government funds "unlawfully" including disbursing funds to armed militias, he said.

He added that the GNA does not distribute these oil revenues to the eastern region, even though most of the oil ports are located in the east of Libya, and they instead transfer only the salary budget at a rate of 177 million dinars (about 126 million US dollars) per month, as all oil revenues go entirely to the National Oil Corporation (NOC) in the capital Tripoli, where the headquarters of the GNA is located.

Al-Thani pointed out that the interim government resorted to loans from the Libyan Central Bank in the city of Bayda in eastern Libya and from some commercial banks to conduct its business, at an interest rate of 3%, noting that the total value of the amount borrowed by the government from 2014 until the end of last year amounted to about 10 billion dinars (about 7 billion US dollars).

Al-Thani blamed the United Nations for what became of Libya, saying that there was no democracy in Libya now.

Dictatorship was the prevailing system, he added, saying the GNA had been imposed by force on the people of Libya.

The interim government emerged from the Libyan House of Representatives in September 2014 and is based in the eastern city of Benghazi.

It is headed by Abdullah al-Thani, who chose to stand by the Libyan parliament and the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Marshal Khalifa Hifter.



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