Al-Takbali on salaries and the economic crisis
LIBYA – House of Representatives member Ali Al-Takbali has said the House’s session showed a new spirit and a shared desire for reform and national reconciliation that, in his words, took him back to his early years, with MPs cautiously optimistic about tackling the complex crises facing Libyans.
Speaking via video link on the programme Al-Hadath on Libya Al-Hadath TV — followed and summarised by Al-Marsad — Al-Takbali said members of the Finance Committee had begun discussing the salaries file as specialists, in a lengthy debate that sought to show MPs’ concern for citizens’ hardship and the gap between the highest and lowest earners.
Salary alignment and teachers’ differentials
He said the committee’s proposal provides for salary differentials according to the nature of the work, which he said had been approved, though he expected some minor problems in implementation.
He quoted the House Speaker as saying that the differentials owed on teachers’ salaries would start to appear from the end of October and would be paid gradually, in monthly instalments and in stages.
He said the decision establishes equal pay according to job grade and the nature of the work, with the possibility of discussing additional allowances where experience or duties differ.
Al-Takbali stressed that the House had called for salaries to be aligned rather than raised for everyone, based on the principle of “pay according to the work”, warning that across-the-board increases could fuel inflation. He also criticised successive governments for their poor cooperation with the House as the legislative authority and for constantly blaming it.
Criticism of the strike and a call to balance rights with schooling
Commenting on the teachers’ protest movement, Al-Takbali described refusing to teach and making a return to classes conditional on receiving all entitlements in a single payment as a form of “blackmail”, in his words, saying the state does not have all the necessary funds and faces uncertainty over whether its economic direction is capitalist or socialist.
He stressed the need to respect the teaching profession and to reconcile teachers’ rights with pupils’ right to education, pointing to the House’s effort to find a compromise to a problem he said previous governments had put off year after year.
Inflation, the disputed billion and summoning officials
Al-Takbali said tackling the economic crises must not place painful burdens on “crushed” citizens, but should instead reach influential figures and businessmen inside and outside power whom he accused of smuggling oil, profiting from refining price differences and manipulating the dollar rate up and down.
Turning to the dollar and inflation, he said the House is a legislative body that makes laws, not a financial institute, noting that the House Speaker had announced his intention to summon the director of the bank in Tripoli and insisted on holding a session to summon Central Bank of Libya Governor Naji Issa and the head of the National Oil Corporation to question them.
He spoke of the difficulty of binding bodies that do not implement the laws amid the political division, with one government whose existence enjoys international backing but which the House does not recognise, and another recognised by the House but not by the world, calling for engagement with all parties and for each to be held to its responsibilities.
Al-Takbali said public talk of the “missing billion” had become a “joke”, criticising the lack of coordination between institutions and asking how a whole billion could vanish without officials being held to account. He called for those who tamper with state funds to be punished and for the money to be recovered for the public treasury to stop the leakage.
Criticism over the lack of refineries and a call to reach out to the west
He criticised the failure to build a proper refinery of sufficient capacity for the country since Libya began relying on oil in 1963, which he said results in annual waste on importing petrol and refined petroleum products, warning that the education crisis signals the country is heading towards failure.
He concluded by pointing to what he described as a new spirit on the part of the House Speaker and his desire to reach out to the western region, adding that he had advised him not to limit contact to politicians but to include the armed groups that have become a reality on the ground, with the aim of bringing the parties together and overcoming the crisis.
