The Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) said Saturday financial losses of the oil blockade had reached over 8.36 billion dollars from January up until August 15, 2020.
“By closing the ports in the Gulf of Sirte, the condensate reservoirs at the export ports will be filled within days, so production of gas associated with the condensate, which feeds Zueitina power stations and north of Benghazi, will cease.” The NOC said.
The National Center for Disease Control analyzed on Sunday, August 16, 2923 blood samples.
The center confirmed that 2489 samples have tested negative for Covid-19 while 434 others tested positive.
The Center added it registered, 39 recoveries, and 8 deaths.
The total confirmed COVID-19 cases in Libya so far is 8172, including 7086 active cases, 933 recoveries and 153 deaths, the center said.
In the same vein, a member of the Coronavirus Control Committee in Bani Walid, Mohammad Saleh, confirmed that the epidemiological situation inside the city is getting worse day by day. For instance, the cases of Coronavirus in the city exceeds 5, and two deaths have been recently recorded of citizens suffering from chronic diseases.
Nevertheless, more than 10 medical personnel have been infected with the disease, “which is a dangerous indicator of the collapse of the health sector in the city.”
The Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Libya, Stephanie Williams, discussed with Ahmed Maiteeq, the Deputy Chairman of the Presidency Council, developments in Libya, especially in Sirte, Jufrah and the oil ports.
According to a statement by the UN Mission in Libya, the two spoke on the phone yesterday and stressed the need to stop the military escalation and restore oil production.
A number of young people in Sabha went to the streets on Saturday to protest the deteriorating living conditions in the city.
The protesters said that they are protesting against the lack of basic services such as cooking gas, electricity, fuel and water.
The protesters matched in the main streets peacefully carrying banners about their demands.
In the same context, ” Sebha Medical Center has become a spot for transmitting Coronavirus between patients and the medical staff, due to the suspects having to stay for several days in the center before their test results appear,” said Abdul Rahman Arish, the director of Sebha Medical Centre.
Arish added that citizens were not cooperating with medical personnel and hide their infection with the virus, which puts weak immunity cases at risk of contracting the virus.
It should be noted that Abdul Rahman Arish was recently infected and some of his family members with COVID 19.
During “Flusna”, a television program broadcasted on WTV channel and Tabadul Platform, the Libyan Finance Minister of the Government of National Accord Faraj Bumatari denied issuing any instructions or decision from the ministry about suspending merchant goods in ports.
He explained that all the work done by the Customs Authority is only a proper application of the law No. 23 of 2010.
“The dollar has two separate lines. The first one is smuggling the funds limited to those who are close to the Central Bank and controlling the parallel market as well as the CBL’s decisions by transferring fictitious funds of hard currency to the black market to be sold to small traders,” Bumtari said, pointing out that the top dealers are the main source of dollars.
As far as the second line is concerned, Bumtari said that the second source of the dollar lies in the existence of goods that support certain orientation or particular parties within Libya.
“Some goods are being authorized without knowing their source of funding, and this is really dangerous,” he stressed.
“Some groups receive imported goods that worth millions in order to finance their business in Libya. However, the Customs Authority cannot ask about the source of these funds,” the minister added.
Faraj Boumtari added that the CBL’s practice that gives the financial force to some parties in order to control the fate of the country will be addressed.
“It is now a matter of political organization… the Central bank should play its role in the framework of an economically efficient policy,” he said.
Libya’s Tripoli based Interior Ministry announced yesterday that it was ready to reopen the country’s borders with Tunisia, subject to adequate preventative health measures being put in place.
The revelation came after an expanded meeting between the Ministry of Interior and the National Center for Disease Control.
The meeting stressed the need for the conclusion of an agreement to facilitate the flow between the two countries the importance of unifying procedures in place that would impose health and security controls on both entry and departure.
The most important of these were the focus on health controls, prevention of congestion, applying the social distancing, and taking proactive measures in the event of approval of the reopening of the borders.
Libya’s sovereign wealth fund head plans to ask the United Nations to allow it to invest billions of dollars sitting idle in its accounts, after missing out on some $4.1bn in potential equity returns during nearly a decade of sanctions.
The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) was blacklisted in March 2011 because it was then controlled by the family of toppled ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Its assets were valued at $67bn in 2012, but LIA plans to update that in October after a review by its financial adviser Deloitte.
Sanctions have had a heavy toll on the LIA, with investment curbs meaning it had missed out on around $4.1bn in potential returns if it had invested in line with the market average, chairman Ali Mahmoud Hassan Mohamed told Reuters news agency.
The LIA also wanted to avoid negative interest rate charges, which had cost it around $23m since 2011, he said.
“We have billions of cash in our accounts not invested,” Mohamed said in an interview this week. “It would be much better to take advantage of the market situation and invest at this moment.”
Libya had previously asked the UN Security Council to approve a sanctions exemption for the LIA in 2016, but this request was turned down as the UN wanted to see a stable government in place before doing so.
Although the LIA is not pushing for a full rollback, it is aiming to apply to the UN Sanctions Committee for adjustments to enable it to invest, via a custodian, some of the $12.7bn frozen cash held by its investment managers.
This includes some of the proceeds from 796 bond holdings, with a value of $4.8bn, that have matured since 2011.
Any investments the LIA tried to make at present were hampered by a lengthy process that required it to gain approval from the sanctions committee as well as within Libya.
“It is time-consuming and investment decisions are time-sensitive,” Mohamed said.
Market volatility during the coronavirus crisis has hit the LIA, cutting the value of its stock holdings by about 5 percent and prompting a potential debt restructuring for some of its hundreds of subsidiaries.
Libya slipped into chaos after the NATO-backed overthrow of Gaddafi and has been split since 2014, with an internationally recognised government controlling the capital, Tripoli, and the northwest of the country, while renegade military leader Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi rules the east.
“We are an independent sovereign wealth fund and have nothing to do with political conflicts within the country right now,” he said. “This fund is owned by all Libyans and we work for all Libyans.”
The government supervises the LIA through the board of trustees, he said. It aims to improve its governance in line with other sovereign funds by the end of 2020, including complying with the Santiago Principles and appointing an external auditor to review its financial results, he added.
Bank ABC (Arab Banking Corporation) announced its results for the first half of this year reporting a net loss of $67 million, attributable to the shareholders of the parent as a result of increase in loan loss provisions, largely related to a major client fraud case.
A significant H1 ECL charge of $174m (H1 2019 $21m) largely as a result of a major client fraud, combined with the forward-looking nature of IFRS9, pushed the group to a net loss of $67m.
“We are not supposed to lift the oil blockade, keep it that way, let things get worse,” a statement issued by the Head of the General Authority for Electricity and Renewable Energy of Libya’s Interim Government, Fakhri Al-Mismari.
This didn’t only provoke an angry response from the Libyan people, but it also made them wonder about Fakhri’s intervention in things that are none of his affair.
Nevertheless, the Libyan people considered his statement as an incitement to persist the oil blockade, bearing in mind that oil is the only source that feeds the Libyan people.”
The chairman of the Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), Mustafa Sanalla, warned that the storage capacity of gas is about to run out, which will result in a halt in production operations within days and an increase in the hours of power outages in the eastern region due to the suspension of supply to power stations. However, Al-Mismari’s response was unexpected.
A source at the Libyan Audit Bureau told Sada economic newspaper that the reason behind Al-Mismari’s visits to Madrid lies behind his friendship with the former Director General of Al-Hammra Company in Spain, Abdul Hakim Baayou.
According to the source, credits in an amount of £13 million was provided to Al-Hammra Company, in Spain, in 2019 by the General Authority for Electricity in the eastern region.
As illustrated in the table, several contracts have been signed in favor of Al-Hammra Company, in Spain:
Reliable sources confirmed to Sada economic newspaper that a meeting was convened last Tuesday between the head and members of the Libyan Industry Union and the governor of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) Al Seddik Al Kabir.
The meeting addressed methods of granting documentary credits for importing products that include 60 categories, among which food commodities, industrial and medical goods, etc.
The meeting also underlined the difficulties faced by manufacturers with regard to the banks and documentary credits.
Sada was also informed that Al Seddik Al Kabir expressed support for the manufacturers. Moreover, a direct route has been opened between the Central Bank of Libya and the Libyan Industry Union.
