Rival administrations in Libya are stepping up initiatives to grab a share of the reconstruction pie after devastating floods in the east of the country undermined by divisions and corruption, raising concerns both nationally and internationally.
Announcements worth millions of euros follow one another from both sides while bodies continue every day to be removed from the rubble or fished out of the Mediterranean Sea in Derna, a coastal town devastated by the waves on September 10.
The government in the east of the country had announced that an “international conference” for the reconstruction of Derna would be held on October 10, before being forced to postpone it until early November in the face of skepticism from the international community, this government did not not being recognized by the UN.
He indicated that he had already assessed the damage and the amounts of compensation to be paid to the victims. The Parliament from which he comes and which is also based in the east claimed to have allocated 1.9 billion euros to reconstruction, without specifying how this money was going to be spent.
To illustrate the Libyan institutional chaos, it was the rival executive based in the West which announced on Sunday an envelope of around 18 million euros for the maintenance of schools damaged by floods in the east.
“Arbitraries”
“Arbitrary cost estimates” and “unilateral reconstruction initiatives announced without transparency”, criticized Monday the head of the UN mission in Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily.
Relaying “the concerns of the Libyan people”, Mr. Bathily notably called for a “credible, independent and objective assessment of the damage and needs” and transparent mechanisms in the awarding of contracts and public procurement.
Flooding caused by the storm Daniel and amplified by the rupture of two dams upstream of Derna, left thousands dead and missing and more than 40,000 displaced.
The country is governed by two rival executives: one in Tripoli (west), led by Abdelhamid Dbeibah and recognized by the UN, the other in the east, embodied by Parliament and affiliated with the camp of Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
Mr. Bathily also called on the Libyan authorities and the international community to establish a “unified Libyan national mechanism” for reconstruction and to “guarantee transparency and control”.
The heads of diplomatic missions from Germany, the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Italy “strongly” supported Mr. Bathily’s call “for a unified Libyan national mechanism, coordinated with local, national and international partners, capable of providing transparent assistance,” they said in a joint statement.
The United States had already called on Libyan authorities last week to “agree on priority spending and ensure that funds are allocated efficiently and appropriately.”
“Opportunistic”
Fears of aid diversion, relayed by several Libyan personalities, led the head of mission of the American aid agency (USAID) in Libya, John Cardenas, to meet at the end of September with the president of the Libyan audit office. , the equivalent of a Court of Auditors, to inquire about “procedures for monitoring international aid and contributions […] and how to ensure that they are not used for other purposes,” according to the audit office.
Claudia Gazzini, Libya specialist for the International Crisis Group, fears that “Libya’s rival governments are using this crisis opportunistically”, citing a struggle for influence and “disinformation campaigns” to “support for reconstruction efforts”.
At the same time, rival administrations find themselves forced to cooperate behind the scenes and maintain the status quo in order to share the wealth of this oil country, according to analysts.
Already in 2018, the former UN envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salamé, denounced “the system of economic predation in Libya”, considering it as the “main obstacle to the political process”. Even today, observers agree on the same observation.