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By Libya Herald staff.
Tunis, 11 September 2015:
The private sector is starved of opportunity by a bureaucracy that considers entrepreneurs as enemies . . .[restrict]to be frustrated at every turn, a key conference on Libya’s future was told by by leading businessmen Husni Bey.
But though he and fellow private sector speaker bemoaned inefficient and unproductive banks and the crippling lack of clear land titles, they did not, as such, demand government money to boost the private sector – just a level playing field with state enterprises.
Nevertheless, the head of the Libyan Investment Authority Hassan Bouhadi is proposing to shower the private sector with cash from some of the $23 billion of cash and deposits which he said the LIA holds locally.
Bouhadi told Reuters that the private sector had been destroyed under Qaddafi’s socialist rule, particularly during the last two decades of the old century.
“It was difficult to open a barber’s shop” he said, “not to mention the opening of a factory or a law firm. This is why the private sector is weak and in need of support and funding.”
Husni Bey told the high-powered National Dialogue Development Forum in Tunis last week that a sharp increase in unproductive investment in salaries and subsidies was a waste of money. In addition he said “The major opponent of the private sector is the public servant”. The whole system considered private business as the enemy. Key decisions on private sector plans were often spread among ministries, most of whom had no direct interest in the projects proposed.
Libya’s economy could only grow if the private sector was given a look-in on state projects while being allowed to get on with business without being subjected to onerous and unnecessary regulation.
Bouhadi said that he believed that if Libyan businesses had strong funding, they would be able to attract foreign partners. He did not however spell out how the LIA would distribute, monitor and control its new investments in the domestic private sector. Nor did he make clear the terms on which the LIA would provide the funding. [/restrict]
