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By Libya Herald journalist.
Tunis, 1 March 2015:
More than seventy-thousand education sector state salaries will be stopped in March, according to the . . .[restrict]salvation government Deputy Minister of Education and head of the Budget Committee, Khalid Rizig.
On the other hand, the Foreign Minister of Libya’s only internationally recognized government, Mohamed Al-Dairi has requested that all members of Libya’s diplomatic corps whose terms of service had ended, return to their former jobs in Libya.
Dairi has also ordered that any exceptional extensions of terms be terminated, without exception. The highest diplomat and the financial secretary in-country would be held responsible for the failure to enforce this decision, Dairi was reported to have said by the pro-House of Representatives LANA news agency yesterday.
Salvation education minister Rizig said yesterday that the salaries of 52,000 education sector employees will be stopped as of March for failing to provide a valid National ID Number whilst more than 20,000 other education sector employees will also be frozen as a result of the duplication of their National ID Numbers.
It will be recalled that by law, Libyans are not permitted to hold more than one state-sector job and that the state has been attempting to use the National ID Number to weed out those who have illegally registered for more than one job in order to fraudulently obtain more than one salary.
Since the breakdown of state institutions post the 2011 revolution, various political, regional, city and tribal entities and militias have misused the power of patronage to illegally distribute jobs, especially at the highly sought after and highly paid overseas postings.
Libya’s recent economic crises caused by the collapse in oil production and the collapse of international crude oil prices has meant that state revenues have dried up and savings have had to be made.
The move by the Tripoli-based salvation government’s Education Ministry seems contradictory to prime minister Omar Al-Hassi’s official political line.
It will be recalled that the GNC-Libya Dawn salvation government prime minister Al-Hassi has insisted that Libya is a rich country and that it has over LD 100 billion available. Al-Hassi has denied that Libya’s financial situation was catastrophic and that it needs any austerity measures, calling those who espouse austerity as ‘’divisive’’.
Yet at the same time Al-Hassi felt it necessary to enforce the use of the National ID Number in order to make savings of LD 6 billion of duplicated salaries and to introduce subsidy reform. [/restrict]
