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By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 14 June 2014:
Money transfer companies are reportedly operating reduced hours, leaving many foreign nationals working in Libya . . .[restrict]struggling to send money home to their families.
“Some Western Union and MoneyGram branches we use are not open at all now and others limit the number of people they will see per day and close early,” one Filipino worker, Bienvenido Clavio, told the Libya Herald. “Western Union has a big advert at Tripoli International Airport claiming it has more than 300 offices in Libya, but where are these?” he said, adding that there were just a handful of Western Union offices in the capital.
Telephone calls to the five Tripoli agents listed by Western Union on its website yesterday went unanswered.
“They told us that the problem is because the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) won’t release the money,” Clavio said.
Expatriate workers can technically send abroad via banks but here, too, similar problems are being reported. “One bank told me that problems were being caused by workers striking,” Filipino nurse Cecile Cruz said. “They deal with Libyan customers first and then say they are closing because they have seen too many people. Once I waited for two hours so the man decided to help me – I think he took pity on me.”
She explained that sometimes Filipinos sent cash back with fellow nationals whose employers paid for regular return airfares. However, since the Philippines upped the travel alert for Libya, some workers are concerned that they will not be able to return to their jobs in Libya and are choosing to stay put. Although the Filipino government is offering a system of voluntary repatriation because of the unstable security situation, comparatively few nationals have taken this up so far.
“The timing of these transfer problems is very difficult for us because June is the start of school in the Philippines and many people here need to send money to pay for tuition,” Cruz said. “It is a big problem for one of my friends because she is paying for her mother’s dialysis and medical treatment.”
Almost all the Filipino workers in Libya had financial obligations back in the Philippines, Clavio said, whether to help their families or to honour monthly bills.
Banking woes for expatriate workers are not restricted to transferring money abroad. One businessman complained that, when he recently changed banks, it took more than a month to transfer company funds to the new account. “The institutions here are in a coma,” he said. “The people want them to work properly but there seem to be many problems with the administration.” [/restrict]
