The Governor of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) Al-Seddiq Al-Kabeer, told the Head of the Audit Bureau, Kahlid Shakshack, to mind coordination with the relevant authorities and work on revising the financial and economic policies so that the extravagant use of foreign currencies in the country is limited and the budget’s deficit is contained.
In a letter to the Audit Bureau’s Head aimed at responding to his proposals for a way out of Libya’s economic juncture, Al-Kabeer said preserving and controlling Libya’s foreign currencies’ reserves is the CBL’s job alone.
“We’ve taken serious effective measures that dropped the budget’s deficit to 7 billion dinars last year in comparison to 12 billion dinars in 2015. Our measures were unfortunately met with no supportive procedures on the governmental economic and financial levels, which could have decreased the budget’s deficit." AL-Kabeer added.
“The budget’s deficit is still about 20 billion dinars every year,” CBL Governor remarked.
The Audit Bureau proposed to the CBL a bundle of measures including reactivating the budget of the Prices Balancing Fund to help provide basic commodities, criticizing the delay of reform measures by the CBL and rejecting the “unilateral conduct” of the CBL reading giving letters of credit worth 750 million dollars.
The Head of the Audit Bureau previously told the CBL’s Governor to halt using state foreign currency reserves until it finds serious solutions that can step up growth ratio and decrease inflation rates and the soaring of prices, so that the economic status gets healed.
“Libya’s dinar has sharply dropped due to the political fragmentation, the lack of one united efficient government in the country, the outbreak of corruption in various economic fields, the absence of control on prices, and the uncontrollable outbreak of smuggling Libya’s goods and assets.” The CBL told the Audit Bureau in the letter.
The CBL regarded the Audit Bureau’s proposal about the importation budget as detached from the real situation of Libya and the political division it is suffering from, adding that the proposal also ignores the fact that there is duality in institutions and complete loss of security.
“Such a procedure would require a single united government that can impose its measures and laws on all of the country’s cities and districts.” The CBL’s letter says, adding that the Audit Bureau and all of the state institutions have failed to end the daily smuggling of fuel that is worth millions of dinars.
