On Friday, the Libyan Parliament-backed Prime Minister, Fathi Bashagha, said the oil blockade would likely end if the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) supplies funds for the approved budget.
“As soon as our government receives the budget and it is distributed equitably according to what we mentioned in the budget, then the residents of the fields and the oil crescent will not mind re-exporting the oil,” Bashagha told Reuters in an interview.
The Libyan Parliament unanimously approved the 2022 budget submitted by the new government, headed by Fathi Bashagha.
The approved budget amounted to 89.68 billion Libyan dinars. He added that 98 Members of Parliament (MP’s) attended the session, and voted in favour of the budget. Five others reportedly voted via a recorded voice message for the budget.
He added that there was a lot of anger at the “illegal spending” by his rival Government of National Unity (GNU) led by Abdelhamid Al-Dbaiba. He also accused the Al-Dbaiba outgoing government of corruption and payments to armed groups.
“The closure is partial in the oil facilities. It happened as a result of the anger of the residents of the Oil Crescent and the oil fields when they saw the expired government in Tripoli,” Bashagha said.
This week, the Parliament approved a 90 billion dinars ($18.6 billion) budget for Bashagha, however the CBL has so far worked with the Bashagha government and has made no public sign it will hand over the money.
“Do I think CBL governor Al-Sadiq al-Kabir will prevent or reject a budget that has been classified and has allocated funds through specific budget items and includes all Libyan sectors and affects the lives of all Libyans…? I do not think so,” he said.
Bashagha excluded the chance of a war in Libya again. “There will be no movement of force from east to west or west to east,” he said.
“In light of the presence of a very large foreign force in the western region of Libya, which was supportive of the defence of the capital, how can there be a war?” he said.
At the session of approving the budget to Bashagha, Parliament Speaker, Ageela Saleh, said that the Bashagha government was granted confidence in accordance with the constitutional declaration, and based on a Libyan-led consensus. He stressed that “no party has the right to object to the government, or prevent it from carrying out its work.”
Libya has had two competing governments since March, when the eastern-based Libyan Parliament appointed Bashagha to replace incumbent Prime Minister Abdelhamid Al-Dbaiba. This has renewed a standoff between the East and West of the country. Al-Dbaiba, who was elected a year ago in United Nations (UN)-backed talks, has refused to cede power except to a government that comes through an “elected Parliament.”
In April, tribal leaders in the East and South of the country closed major oil fields and ports, in protest against the refusal of the outgoing Prime Minister of the GNU to hand over power to the Parliament-approved government.