On Wednesday, the Libyan Bank of Commerce and Development (BCD) denied statements coming from the governor of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL), Al-Saddiq Al-Kabir, who claimed that the bank has given 6 billion Libyan dinars in loan to the Libyan National Army (LNA).
Al-Kabir, in a briefing on Tuesday at the Tripoli-based Parliament, said that the BCD gave a direct loan of 6 billion dinars to the LNA forces.
In a statement, the BCD’s administration confirmed that the CBL governor’s statements were totally untrue, adding that Al-Kabir has targeted their bank since 2014 after they ended their partnership with the Qatar National Bank (QNB). The CBL’s actions are in a clear favour of the Qatari bank.
The BCD’s administration stated that Al-Kabir has carried out several arbitrary measures against the BCD bank, operating under Law No. 1 of 2005, by halting the issuance of credits and foreign transfers, in addition to suspending the bank’s clearing instruments of more than 10,000 Libyan dinars.
The BCD’s administration also denounced the fallacies made by Al-Kabir, saying that they will take all legal procedures against the governor of the Libyan Central Bank.
Al-Kabir added that the general debt of the state reached a record high of 270% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), adding that Libyan oil revenues dropped dramatically from 53.2 billion dollars in 2012 to almost nothing in 2020.
He said this led to the shelving of economic reform in 2018 and 2019, adding that Libya lost over 180 billion dollars since 2013 due to the shutdown of the oil sector, which he described as “a bullet in the head.”