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By Sami Zaptia
Tripoli, 26 August 2013:
At yesterday’s press conference Prime Minister Ali Zeidan admitted that Libya had many problems.
Zeidan blamed Libya’s . . .[restrict]current problems on the budget, the lack of security, the non-activation of the projects, and the non-existence of the state.
The Prime Minister was responding to a question from the media as to why despite his government having access to a generous budget there were still assassinations and resignations in his cabinet. He was asked what were the reason for Libya’s continued problems.
The Prime Minister said that Libya faced many problems including the government’s inability to disburse the budget with flexibility. “The government is tied from the beginning. This does not happen in any other country”, he repeated one of his frequently made complaints.
Zeidan also lamented his inability to activate Libya’s “thousands” of stalled projects. “The security situation led to this”, he explained. He explained that he was therefore unable to disburse this section of the budget. “The budget is not given to us in a purse to spend, but given to us with strings attached”, he explained.
In passing, Zeidan thanked the GNC and the Finance Committee for trying to muster 120 GNC members to vote on giving the government the power to transfer money from one section of the budget to another. Important issued such as the budget require a quorum of 120 GNC members to vote on them.
“You talk as if we received a full state”, Zeidan complained to the media member who posed the question. He reminded the audience that the state after the Revolution had “no police, no army, no institutions and no system. This is a legacy of 42 years of destruction”. [/restrict]
