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Tripoli, 11 October:
Every family in Libya is to be given 1,000 dinars to celebrate Eid Al-Adha following a resolution of the National Congress in Tripoli.
The donation is to help families cover the cost of the festival, with a reasonable sheep reckoned to cost in the region of LD 800 at present.
The plan is likely to cost in excess of LD 1 billion and may inflate prices on the sheep market.
Announcing the decision yesterday, Congress spokesman Omar Humaidan said that the resolution would take at least two months to implement and families should not expect to receive payment before that time. This year, Eid Al-Adha will start on 26 October.
The Congress is presently in discussions with the Central Bank regarding the mechanics of implementing the decision.
This is the third time since the end of the revolution last year the authorities have decided to make a payment to the population.
In February the NTC announced a one-off payment of LD 2,000 to every family to celebrate the first anniversary of the revolution. The payments took several months to be made owing to the lack of a functioning database, but it is hoped this latest round of payments will be processed more efficiently now that the system is up and running.
Also in February, the NTC resolved to pay every revolutionary who had fought in last year’s war, with LD 4,000 going to married fighters and LD 2,400 to unmarried ones. The scheme quickly descended into chaos with some revolutionaries not getting paid while payments were made to names who never existed in the first place. In April, the government was forced to temporarily suspend payments in order to implement more rigorous identification criteria.
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