By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 15 February 2016:
The Presidency Council finally produced its list of ministers for the new national unity government . . .[restrict]early this morning. There are 13 minsters plus an additional five ministers of state with special responsibilities. Three are women.
The ministers with portfolio are:
- Justice: Juma Abdullah Drissi
- Interior: Arif Salih Khojja
- Foreign Affairs: Mohamed Taha Siala
- Finance : Fakhr Muftah Bufernah
- Defence : Mahdi Ibrahim Al-Barghathi
- Local Government : Bidad Gansu Massoud
- Health: Omar Bashir Al-Taher
- Transport : Milad Mohamed Matouk
- Social Affairs: Faida Mansour El-Shafi
- Planning: Al-Hadi Al-Taher Al-Juhaimi
- Economy and Industry: Abdulmutalib Ahmed Abu Farwa
- Education: Mohamed Khalifa Al-Azzabi
- Labour: Ali Galma Mohamed
The ministers of state with special responsibilities are:
- Women’s Affairs and Development: Amsa Mustafa Usta
- Martyrs’ Families, Wounded and the Missing: Muhanad Said Younis
- Institutional Reform: Iman Mohammed Ben Younes
- National Reconciliation: Abdeljawad Faraj Al-Obeidi
- Migrants and the Displaced: Yousef Abubakr Jalalah
The list was signed by seven of the nine Council members. Missing were the signatures of Ali Gatrani, one of the two deputy prime ministers-designate from eastern Libya who had suspended his membership of the Council on Friday and returned to Tobruk, and of Omar Al-Aswad, the Minister for Legislative Affairs.
Fathi Majberi, the other eastern deputy prime minister-designate who also suspended his membership on Saturday, signed, having rejoined the Council.
The list now has to be approved by the House of Representatives which on Saturday had decided to abandon today’s session on the assumption that no government list would be announced by the Presidency Council in time.
This is the second proposal by the Council to the HoR. Its first attempt, with 32 ministries, was rejected three weeks ago as being excessive. Parliament demanded a smaller ministry. The current proposal more or less meets HoR wishes if purely portfolio ministries are counted, although the addition of the five ministers of state puts it on the top side of the HoR demand. However, the numbers are thought to be within acceptable limits.
The bigger issue is now obtaining the backing within the HoR of Gatrani allies who support Libyan military heads Khalifa Hafter and who fear that he will be removed. They have enough votes to prevent the amendment to the 2011 Constitutional Declaration needed to incorporate the Libyan Political Agreement into Libyan law. [/restrict]
