Libya government officials accused of wastage of public funds

Libyan officials in the governments climbing to power since 2012 until 2017 have authorized spending over 277 billion Libyan dinars in the central bureaus except the eastern government “Interim Government” which spent in east Libya 21 billion dinars in those five years, an annual report by the Libyan Audit Bureau disclosed on Wednesday.

The Audit Bureau’s report, which was announced in a press conference in Tripoli on Wednesday, said that Libyan government spent in 2017 alone 32 billion dinars.

The Head of the Audit Bureau Khalid Shakshak said at the presser that corruption inside the Libyan government and inside the Central Bank of Libya, embassies overseas, scholarships and many other governmental entities had led to squandering Libya’s public funds.

The report referred to ridiculous money spent by the members and Head of the Presidential Council just to buy furniture for their offices, saying that Fathi al-Mijibri allocated nearly a million dinars for furnishing his office, while Fayez Al-Sirraj allocated nearly half a million, with others varying in the number of cash they spent on their offices in the same period when Libyans where standing in lines in front of banks to cash out their salaries amid a crazy shortage of cash at the banks.

The report said the Libyan oil revenue was improved in 2017 as production hit new highs, yet added that the improvement was not reflected in the economic conditions in Libya as the dinar had been stripped of its value, prices had gone sky-limit and cash troubles are still counting in the banks in Libya.

“The Audit Bureau regained several sums in corrupted cash in dubious deals with foreign firms and managed to obstruct a payment of 1.6 billion dinars to a foreign company on skeptical grounds.” The report says.

It adds that the government was funded in 2017 by the loans from the central bank worth 58 billion dinars and the government used over 700 million dinars from the emergency budget bank accounts.