2024-08-23 18:31:28
For years there was a ceasefire in Libya – and a kind of balance between the warring camps. Now a new crisis is escalating at a rapid pace. The next scene: the central bank.
In Libya, the central bank has stopped work after an employee was kidnapped. The IT manager was kidnapped by “unknown groups” and his work was suspended as a result. Other employees have received similar threats. Until the IT worker is released, all banking transactions and the work of all departments and systems will be suspended. The step also affects the deposit for revenues from the state oil business.
This further escalates the new crisis between the two rival governments in the country. In the desert state in North Africa, a long struggle for influence and resources is going on between two large camps. They are led by Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dbaiba in the west and Field Marshal Chalifa Haftar and his sons in the east. The country is deeply divided, with two governments and administrations working in parallel.
Revenues from the oil and gas business, which account for around 95 percent of state revenues, are paid into the central bank. The central bank is responsible, among other things, for paying public salaries, including in the east. It is the “highest price” for the groups fighting in Libya, namely the “largest foreign exchange reserves in Africa and the bubbling heart of the Libyan oil-driven economy,” wrote expert Wolfram Lacher from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).