A member of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF), Ahmed Al-Sharkasi accused the family of Prime Minister Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba, of wasting 120 billion dinars.
Al-Sharkasi said that “Dbaiba continues to make false promises, the latest of which is the holding of elections.”
In February, an investigation was conducted by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and its partners, on the prominent Dbaiba family in Libya. It drew on leaked data from inside Swiss banking giant, Credit Suisse, and discovered previously unknown accounts belonging to Ali Ibrahim Dbaiba, the cousin of Prime Minister, Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba.
Three other businessmen who benefited from the public contracting system, were involved in the case.
“Billions of dollars given out through public contracts had gone missing. Investigators said the money appeared to have been stolen by the former head of Libya’s Organization for the Development of Administrative Centres (ODAC), Ali Ibrahim Dbaiba, and his family,” the OCCRP said.
It noted that these clients, all of whom were later implicated in corruption investigations, were involved at all levels of the public construction sector. This ranged from the awarding of contracts, to the ownership of companies that benefited from government spending. One was a Libyan bank in Tunisia, allegedly used in a graft scheme involving letters of credit issued for ODAC contracts.
Their Credit Suisse accounts were worth tens of millions of dollars while they were open — in some cases, during the same years their owners were working with Dbaiba to loot ODAC. All remained open after the 2011 Libyan uprising brought the country’s development system under renewed scrutiny, and after Dbaiba was placed on a national sanctions list.
ODAC and the public contracting process were part of a broader system of corruption, which was used to siphon off Libya’s vast oil wealth during Gaddafi’s four decades in power. A 2014 report by anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International found that his regime likely stole around US$61 billion.
Last year Dbaiba’s brother-in-law and cousin, Abdel-Hamid became Libya’s interim Prime Minister. The PM was previously the head of state-owned development contractor LIDCO, which was part of ODAC’s contracting system. After Gaddafi’s fall, both Dbaiba’s were sanctioned for corruption by Libya’s new transitional government.
Both Ali, and his son were named in a request for international assistance that Libya sent to Scotland in 2013, as it sought help tracing looted state funds. According to a report by ‘The Guardian’ newspaper, their luxury properties in the United Kingdom are worth over £25 million pounds.