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By Sami Zaptia.
London, 31 October 2018:
Libya’s main sovereign wealth fund entity, the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), has condemned the forced entry into its Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company (LAFICO) subsidiary yesterday.
The subsidiary’s Tripoli office was forcibly entered by a parallel board of directors created by the internationally-unrecognized eastern based Libyan Interim Government.
It is not clear exactly how this parallel board of directors gained entry into the LAFICO offices and whether they were aided by any militias.
It will be recalled that the 2015 Skhirat Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) and the international community recognize only the Presidency Council and its Government of National Accord (PC/GNA) and the heads of sovereign entities that it appoints.
Equally, the LPA stipulates that any sovereign positions are to be made consensually between the House of Representatives and the High State Council.
At the time of writing the Serraj-led PC/GNA had made no comments on the incident.
It is also unclear why the regular security forces aligned to the Serraj PC/GNA had failed to react to the forced entry, especially in view of the claim by the Serraj PC/GNA that it is currently enacting “new security arrangements” in the capital.
It will also be recalled that in August this year the LIA was itself forced to abandon its main Tripoli headquarters at the downtown Tripoli Tower due to persistent militia coercion and interference in its internal affairs.
The LIA had condemned the actions of the militia that was ostensibly entrusted with guarding the Tripoli Tower and was nominally-aligned to the Faiez Serraj-led Presidency Council.
The LIA had said that the militia had persistently threatened and frightened its employees as well as at one stage having kidnapped one manager and held him hostage at their base across from the LIA (former Women’s Military Academy).
The militia had also tried to coerce managers into ignoring the orders of their superiors, cut off staff emails and attempted to prevent the LIA relocating to a new HQ.
As a result of all these actions, which the LIA had said were affecting its performance, it decided to move to a new location. The LIA did not reveal its new location.
There had been speculation at the time that it might return to its emergency/back-up office in Malta. However, sources had informed this newspaper that it has relocated to the Tripoli office of one of its subsidiaries.
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