On Monday, the Libyan Parliament-designated Prime Minister, Fathi Bashagha called for the formation of a committee to investigate the fuel and electricity crises.
The committee will “communicate directly with the relevant authorities, in order to develop urgent solutions to end the two crises. This is to ensure that the level of services for citizens will not decline in the future,” according to a statement published by the government.
The committee will submit daily reports on the results of its work to the Prime Minister.
It is to be chaired by Deputy Prime Minister, Ali Faraj Al-Qatrani, and includes the Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy; Awad Agniwa, a representative of the Ministry of Interior; Faraj Aqaim Al-Abdali, representatives of the Brega Oil Marketing Company; Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Salam Al-Obeidi and Ali Abu Bakr Al-Houti, and a representative of the Gulf Oil Company; Salah Abdel-Karim Mohamed.
Notably, angry demonstrations swept Libya last weekend protesting declining living standards, electricity cut-offs, and a plethora of other issues.
The largest such protest in years took place in Martyrs Square in Tripoli, where several hundred people took part. In Tobruk, demonstrators attacked the Parliament building, and set parts of it on fire.
On Sunday, the Speaker of the Libyan Parliament, Ageela Saleh, called on the Attorney General, the Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Parliamentary Committee, and the Chairman of the Administrative Control Authority to open an urgent investigation into the continuing power outages.
Saleh demanded an “urgent investigation into the reasons for the continuing power cuts for long hours, and the severe shortage of fuel, which aggravate the suffering of the Libyan people.”
He also called on the concerned authorities to “assume their responsibilities and refer those responsible for the power outage crisis to the judiciary for a public inquiry.”
A member of the Bashagha committee, Faraj Al-Abdali vowed that “those responsible for the fuel crisis in the country will be held accountable.”
Al-Abdali launched a surprise inspection of the Brega Oil Company warehouses in Ras Al-Manqar, to see the official distribution statements of fuel stations in Benghazi.
He also visited a number of petrol stations in the city, and called for an increase in their quota’s due to severe overcrowding, and demanded they operate at full operational capacity. Al-Abdali also directed the station owners to provide an electric generator, and surveillance cameras.
“The crisis was deliberately fabricated. The fuel, gas and diesel are available in large quantities in the warehouse, and there are stations that deliberately shut down their pumps despite the abundance of fuel, and we will hold them accountable,” Al-Abdali said.