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Tag: expenditures

Exclusive: Irregularities in the Ministry of Education, Including Unlawful Expenditures, Vehicle Allocations, and Recycling of 12.5 Million

Written by Amira Cherni on . Posted in Corruption Files, News. No Comments on Exclusive: Irregularities in the Ministry of Education, Including Unlawful Expenditures, Vehicle Allocations, and Recycling of 12.5 Million

Our source has obtained a letter from the Director of the Inspection and Follow-up Department at the Prime Minister’s Office in the Government of National Unity to the Office of the Minister of State for the Prime Minister’s Affairs regarding administrative and legal violations within the Ministry of Education and Minister Mousa Al-Megreif.

The letter highlighted several financial and administrative violations, including the allocation of 2.8 million dinars, deducted from the budgets of municipal education offices for 2022 and transferred to trust and deposit accounts without the necessary documentation. The purchasing committee’s report for 2022 was altered multiple times without approval from the administrative and financial affairs department. Payments were also processed while the department director was on an emergency leave.

Additionally, the ministry’s tender committee was dissolved before completing the printing and supply project for school textbooks for the 2024/2025 academic year. The procurement platform had been inactive since January 1, 2023, with procurement decisions being made without its involvement, except for the textbook project, which was submitted under pressure from the tender committee chairman. Several financial uplift decisions were issued to various companies and entities without proper procedures.

The letter also exposed the unlawful allocation of ministry-owned vehicles, including a white Hyundai Santa Fe (license plate 5/2099957) given to the minister’s brother, Saleh Mohammed Al-Megreif, despite being listed in the 2022 Audit Bureau report as a stolen vehicle. Another Hyundai Creta (gray, license plate 5/2096696) was allocated to Mohammed Faraj Milad Al-Shamli, who has no affiliation with the ministry.

Furthermore, individuals with no official ties to the ministry were sent on official foreign missions to attend international conferences, including Mohammed Faraj Milad Al-Shamli. The minister’s brother was also appointed as Director of the International Cooperation Office despite being absent for months without authorized leave or a designated replacement, while still receiving full benefits, including housing allowances.

The letter also mentioned deliberate obstruction of legal and international cooperation office decisions within the electronic system, making it impossible to track correspondence, and a preference for specific companies in procurement deals.

Other violations included failure to complete the procurement of school desks, despite the awarding process concluding in August 2023, and delays in disbursing municipal education budgets until August 2024, even though funds were available since April 2024.

The ministry also recycled 12.5 million dinars from previous years and repeatedly assigned the same companies for procurement contracts. The minister’s advisor, Abdel-Salam Ahmed Al-Saghir, was also frequently sent on official foreign missions and assigned to sensitive committees despite being detained in a public funds embezzlement case.

Abu Mahara Writes: “Central Bank Data on Revenue and Public Expenditure (Incomplete Transparency)”

Written by Amira Cherni on . Posted in Economic articles. No Comments on Abu Mahara Writes: “Central Bank Data on Revenue and Public Expenditure (Incomplete Transparency)”

Lawyer Ahmed Ali Abu Mahara wrote an article titled: Central Bank Data on Revenue and Public Expenditure (Incomplete Transparency):

There is no doubt that the data issued by the Central Bank of Libya on state revenues and expenditures is an important indicator for understanding the country’s financial situation. Through these reports, one can assess the total revenues generated from various sources such as oil, gas, and taxes, as well as how these revenues are distributed across different sectors. Additionally, expenditure data provides a clear picture of how the government manages its financial resources.

However, when examining the overall legal framework, it becomes evident that revenue collection and expenditure management fall exclusively under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance. This ministry oversees the state’s revenues and expenditures, monitors its income, and manages all government accounts with the Central Bank to ensure proper deposit and spending procedures. This raises a critical question: Who is legally authorized to issue reports on revenue and expenditure data? Is it the Central Bank or the Ministry of Finance? This article aims to clarify the answer.

Libya’s public revenues vary in nature, including oil revenues, taxes, and fees. Oil revenues are the primary source of funding for public expenditures. These revenues are collected through agencies and institutions responsible for managing state income, which is then deposited into the Ministry of Finance’s accounts at the Central Bank of Libya.

As for public expenditures, they involve financial disbursements that the state owes to rightful recipients, such as salaries and similar payments. These expenditures occur through authorizations issued by the Ministry of Finance to the Central Bank, instructing it to release the required funds. All these transactions follow the financial regulations governing such operations.

According to Libya’s legal framework, the Central Bank acts as an agent of the government in all financial transactions. Public revenues are deposited in the Central Bank under the name of the public treasury and placed in the Ministry of Finance’s accounts. These accounts are then used to settle the government’s financial obligations. This process is legally known as treasury operations. The public treasury serves as the link between revenue collection and expenditure, where all types of state income are accumulated, and from which the necessary funds are disbursed based on spending orders issued by the Ministry of Finance to the Central Bank, which then executes the payments.

This legal requirement makes it clear that the Ministry of Finance is the entity responsible for issuing financial reports since it has precise knowledge of both the amounts spent and the revenues collected in the state treasury.

By law, the Ministry of Finance is mandated to produce financial reports compiled from the aggregated reports it receives from various institutions. Article 25 of the Budget, Accounts, and Warehouses Regulations states:

“Assistant financial controllers must submit a monthly report to the financial controller, approved by the head of the respective authority, detailing the revenues collected and expenditures incurred…”

“The financial controller must prepare a monthly report on the ministry’s operations and submit it to the Ministry of Finance after obtaining approval from the Deputy Minister, no later than the end of the following month.”

If the Ministry of Finance does not produce any financial reports—its last published report on its website dates back to 2022—and there are no accounting reconciliations between the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Libya to verify the actual figures for revenue and expenditure, this lack of reconciliation results in discrepancies between the Central Bank’s data and the records held by revenue-generating institutions such as the National Oil Corporation, the Tax Authority, and the Customs Authority.

Such reconciliation between the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank is crucial for understanding the country’s true financial situation. Without it, the Central Bank’s unilateral release of these reports raises serious questions about the accuracy of the figures presented.

Exclusive: Al-Wahsh Comments on the Central Bank of Libya’s Statement

Written by Amira Cherni on . Posted in News. No Comments on Exclusive: Al-Wahsh Comments on the Central Bank of Libya’s Statement

Economic expert Saber Al-Wahsh exclusively told our source about the Central Bank of Libya’s recent statement, describing the figures in the report on revenues and expenditures from January 1, 2025, to February 28, 2025, as concerning.

He added that total foreign currency revenues amounted to 3.6 billion USD, while expenditures were 6.1 billion USD, resulting in a deficit of 2.5 billion USD. Despite total public expenditures being 8.4 billion LYD (about 1.5 billion USD), he questioned, “Where do these funds, chasing dollars, come from?”

Al-Wahsh further explained that nearly 3 billion USD of foreign currency was requested for personal purposes, most of it likely being sought for profit through selling it on the parallel market.

He concluded, “Where do these funds come from to request such a huge amount of hard currency on the parallel market? We don’t want to create noise over this publication, but this situation is unsustainable. I believe the Central Bank is worried, but it’s concealing its concerns in hopes of an improvement.”