Tripoli— Coming under a mounting pressure to take steps toward economic reform, Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh said Tuesday that a number of measures are to be ‘immediately’ announced by the Government of National Unity (GNU) aimed at mitigating the effects of parallel spending on the devaluation of the Libyan dinar, according to a press release by his Media Office.
The government will also take precautionary measures to enhance transparency in development and partnership contracts within the oil sector, it said. This came during an expanded meeting held at the National Oil Corporation (NOC), which was attended by the head of the Audit Bureau, Khaled Shakshak.
The measures also aim to “reduce government spending in hard currency on Libyan missions abroad,” according to a statement.
Meanwhile, the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) Naji Issa held a meeting on Tuesday morning with Dbeibeh’s Financial Advisor, Mohamed Shahoubi, during which “several issues of mutual interest were discussed, including the developments in the unification of public spending, the addition of some fiscal policy measures to the proposed economic reform package and ways to improve the quality of services provided to citizens,” according to a statement by the CBL.
“Both officials agreed to quickly form joint working groups to begin finalizing the economic reform package in preparation for its official launch,” it added.
On 22 April, Mr. Issa held talks in Washington with Jorge Familiar, Vice President of the World Bank for Investment Affairs and Kenji Okamura, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in the presence of senior IMF department directors.
The need to take immediate measures to initiate some sort of economic reform comes as the pressure is mounting on Mr. Dbeibeh to undertake action and abide by a unified public budget law as well as fighting corruption that is widespread in the country.
Mr. Dbeibeh was appointed Prime Minister on 15 February 2021 through the so-called Libyan Political Dialogue Forum with a sole mission to organize and hold the general elections on 24 December 2021. These elections have since postponed and have yet to take place.