The hard work in Libya has only just begun

Unfortunately, the last meeting of the 17-member constitutional committee was deadlocked on the approval of a proposed election law, out of an abundance of caution and perhaps an acknowledgment of the challenging road that lies ahead. Failure to arrive at an agreement before the year-end election simply means another interim government will be appointed until a constitution is drafted, endorsed, adopted and approved in a referendum.

Beyond holding the promised December elections, Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s government has pledged to improve the living conditions of Libyans who are exhausted by years of political division, economic hardship, the pandemic, corruption, the lack of public services, crumbling infrastructure and a decimated healthcare system. International assistance and donor aid will only go so far in reversing more than a decade of decline and disrepair. Besides, the lack of a properly unified government will only complicate the accessibility and delivery of critical public services to some of Libya’s most vulnerable.

These failures result in communities grudgingly welcoming armed groups such as local militias, or even hosting foreign fighters and mercenaries, in pursuit of some measure of security or stability. This is why a single, unified and functional government is crucial to delivering on the promise of improved living conditions, which in turn will address some of Libya’s pressing challenges with regard to internal security, criminal justice and post-war reconstruction.

However, uniting governments accustomed to operating separately for over five years is no easy feat, despite GNU claims. Unification entails audits, restructuring and reforms to modes of operating, not to mentions massive debts incurred by the two previous governments, all of which will undoubtedly face stiff resistance, especially when it comes to accounting for each government’s expenditures. Officials are unlikely to be forthcoming in their responses to inquiries, refusing to participate in any initiatives to curb the impunity they enjoyed in an environment lacking accountability and transparency, and rife with corruption. It is not sufficient to simply paper over malfeasance, waste and corruption with talk of unity, especially when bloated bureaucracies consistently steal a third of the state budget annually.

An urgent test for the Dbeibah Cabinet is the resolution of the feud between Mustafa Sanala, chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), and Sadiq Al-Kabir, the central bank governor. Oil remains the lifeblood of Libya’s economy and primary key to its prosperity, which makes the ownership and distribution of oil revenues a major source of contention. The advent of the interim government and rush to unity has not stopped the dispute between NOC and the central bank, with Sanala demanding that oil revenues flow directly to the NOC and not the central bank, given the latter’s checkered past of paying salaries to a wide range of militias.

It remains to be seen whether Dbeibah’s strategy of appointing an oil minister, a position that did not exist under the previous government, will actually work. It may simply introduce yet another element to the NOC-central bank rivalry, since oil revenues will now be paid to the new ministry, under the sole discretion and responsibility of the GNU. Assuming the temporary government succeeds in controlling the revenues, it could accelerate reforms, invest in much-needed infrastructure and revitalize parts of Libya still ravaged by years of fighting.

Unfortunately, the interim government will find it difficult to equitably distribute funding in parts of the country still disconnected by roadblocks manned by heavily armed militias. Disarming them before December is simply not feasible. The new government has yet to signal how it plans to continue operating, let alone hold elections while thousands of well armed, well funded non-state actors remain active.

Granted,…