The speaker of Libya's Tobruk-based eastern parliament, Ageela Saleh has issued a decree setting up an authority to rebuild the war-ravaged eastern port city of Benghazi, at a cost of billions of euros, the Libya Herald reported Thursday on its website.
Called the Benghazi Works Committee, the authority will be headed by the interim prime minister of the Tobruk-based government, Abdullah Al-Thinni. It includes the east’s governor of the Central Bank of Libya, Ali Al-Hibri, acting mayor of Benghazi Abdulrahman Elabbar and Major-General Abdul Razzaq Al-Nazhuri, the military governor of the area between the cities of Derna and Ben Jawad.
The aim of the authority is to assess and approve the various projects, services and facilities needed to for the city’s reconstruction and development, according to the Libya Herald.
These project will then be handed to the various ministries and other authorities to implement, with the help of other specialists, which the committee is authorised to bring in to help with planning.
Funding will be authorised and provided by the Central Bank of Libya (the eastern, parallel branch), the Libya Herald cited a statement from Thinni’s office as saying.
It was not immediately clear how the funding will work for reconstruction projects, as the eastern CBL does not have access to Libya’s oil income, the paper noted.
Benghazi suffered decades of neglect under the rule of late dictator Muammad Gaddafi and was devastated by the three-year battle to liberate the city from Islamic militants.
Benghazi needs a complete new sewerage system among many other infrastructure requirements, the Libya Herald said.
A conference on Benghazi’s reconstruction is planned for January by the acting mayor Abdulrahman Elabbar, who has tasked former city prosecutor Aisha Yusuf, with organising the event. Yusuf is a member of the eastern parliament.
