The Minister of Labor and Rehabilitation, Ali Al-Abed, said "there are more than two million foreigners working in Libya, benefiting from the subsidies provided to citizens without paying taxes or social security fees," adding that foreign workers benefit from fuel and electricity subsidies, make things crowded for the citizens in hospitals and on the roads.
The Minister spoke about a plan that the Ministry of Labor was preparing to be presented to the cabinet before Eid al-Adha (June 28) to improve the livelihood of Libyans by regulating the foreign labor market.
According to this proposal, each citizen will be allowed to sponsor about 12 workers, who will be registered to pay taxes and insurance, so that the citizen becomes an employer.
Regarding the Labor Ministry's campaign to control duality of work between the public and private sectors, Al-Abed confirmed that it was in line with Law No. 12 of 2010, which strictly prohibits combining two jobs. He pointed out that the campaign targeted, in its first phase, the high-end neighborhoods in Tripoli, Benghazi, Sebha, and Misrata.
He said that there were shops whose prices could be worth millions, and through their national ID numbers, we found the owners working in the public positions. He stressed that the campaign was targeting achieving social justice and criticized what he described as negligence within the public sector, saying the job performance rates of some employees had been poor, and some of them "don't go to work in two or three days, and others work only two hours a day."
