Throne over a swamp: Libya’s GNA drowns in mire of financial corruption
Suspicions of corruption inside Libya have followed the Government
of National Accord (GNA) and its officials, as they began to appear in public
following the mass pressure by citizens in Tripoli in August, in addition to
attempts to avoid any other social explosion due to the uproar as a result of
widespread tampering with public money and the collapse of the services system,
which resulted in the Investigation Department of the Office of the Public
Prosecutor in Libya issuing decisions for pretrial detention of a number of
officials on charges of corruption.
Lost Libyan money
Libya is one of the most corrupt countries in the world,
ranking 168th out of 180, according to the Transparency International report
for the year 2019.
Suspicions of corruption haunt the Libyan Audit Bureau,
where its head, Khaled Shakshak, had previously asked the head of the Attorney
General’s business office to start an investigation process accompanying the
Bureau’s procedures concerned with questioning one of its members after he was
involved in corruption linked to extortion and bribery. The Bureau has lifted
the immunity of the implicated member to allow the opportunity to start investigating
him in accordance with the law, noting that the participation of the competent
public prosecutor's office in criminal investigations is an important step in
combating corruption in public institutions.
Military Prosecution head in Tripoli Ayoub Emberch issued a
decision to arrest and bring the head of the Committee for the Rationalization
of Salaries at the Ministry of Finance, Al-Amin Bou Abdallah, and put him in
prison on charges of negligence since he assumed the position on September 1,
in addition to the deliberate delay in paying the salaries of Ministry of
Defense employees, according to the lawsuit list issued by the Military
Attorney General, who called the Ministry of Finance to denounce the
imprisonment of Bouabdallah.
“The denunciations came for several reasons. First, the
absence of any functional relationship between the committee and the Office of
the Military Prosecutor General, as the head of the committee is a public
servant who does not hold any military rank and the incident that is being
investigated is not considered a crime to which the military law applies. The
second reason is that the subject under investigation is an administrative
procedure related to the salaries of the military prosecutor’s office, and
these issues are dealt with according to the administrative sequence in
effect,” he added.
GNA Finance Minister Faraj Boumtari said that his ministry
denounces the detention incident that took place by order of the Public
Prosecutor at the Military Prosecutor's Office, pointing out that the subject
under investigation is an administrative procedure related to the salaries of
the Military Prosecutor's Office, and thus issues are dealt with according to
the administrative sequence in force in this regard. The delay in completing the
procedure was caused by the delay by the Ministry of Defense in providing the
committee with the supporting documents.
Banned from traveling
The director of the Partial Military Prosecution in Tripoli,
Ayoub Al-Ajili, issued a decision to place seven defendants in the case of
financial abuse and wasting public money in the military medical system on the
list of those banned from traveling abroad.
Pursuing the corrupt
During the past few days, the Investigation Department of
the Office of the Attorney General in Libya issued pre-trial detention
decisions that included Abd al-Latif al-Tunisi, director of the Office of the
Governor of the Central Bank of Libya, and Mustafa Maatouq, chairman of the
board of directors of African Airlines, accused of inflicting serious damage to
public funds. In addition, Fawzi Ali al-Ramali, director of the Africa Company
for Trade and Investment of the Libya Aid Fund, which is based in Mauritius, is
accused of using the public money entrusted to him for purposes other than that
for which it was allocated, in addition to his practicing the job despite being
suspended from his duties and using forged documents.
The decisions of the Libyan Attorney General's office
included decisions to imprison the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education
Adel Jumaa for a period of 30 days pending investigation in cases related to
suspected corruption, as well as the imprisonment of GNA Minister of Local
Government Milad Al-Taher and his deputy, Saleh Al-Saklouk, against the
background of accusations of looting public money under the pretext of
financing public service companies in the eastern region without the financial
sums coming to the beneficiary. The head of the Municipal Council of Bani
Walid, Salem Noyer, was arrested against the background of his disposal of 3
million dinars allocated to the displaced in collusion with members of his
family, while the imprisonment of Foreign Bank of Libya director Muhammad bin
Yusuf was extended, along with the director of the investment sector at the
Al-Sharif Shalabi bank, who is the son-in-law of the GNA leader Fayez al-Sarraj.
Attorney General Abdul Basit Shahran addressed a letter to
the Director of the Information Office at the GNA Ministry of Interior, the
head of the Criminal Investigation Agency, and the head of the Deterrence
Agency to Combat Crime, in which he stated that the governor of the central
bank, Siddiq al-Kabir, had submitted a complaint against Libyan Foreign Bank
Director Muhammad bin Yusuf for entering the bank accompanied by a group to
practice his work as the bank’s general manager, where the head of the
investigations department said that investigations had been decided in several
files related to public money and economic crimes, while international
companies were assigned to gain access to the facts in a number of cases
related to the investment institution and the Libyan Foreign Bank, referring to
international judicial cooperation to investigate the files of the Central Bank
of Libya in Tripoli in the west, and Al-Bayda in the east, in addition to
government performance. This cooperation revealed that the Libyan Foreign Bank
wasted 800 million dollars in unclassified investments that resulted in serious
damage to public money.
Trial ploy
Representative Ali Al-Takbali considered that the arrest of
some officials in the GNA on charges of corruption is a trick that does not
fool anyone, as it is an attempt to keep eyes away from the real corrupt
officials. He added that accountability should extend to all heads in the government,
as corruption has become rampant and it has become difficult to get rid of it.