The newly formed Libyan government plans to deploy funds to reconstruct the country’s war-torn cities and regions, said Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah on Wednesday.
Dbeibah’s comments came during a government meeting in the capital Tripoli.
“The government will set up funds to rebuild cities damaged by the war such as Benghazi, Tripoli and Sirte,” he said without giving further details.
There are no official estimates of the cost of the reconstruction projects needed in Libya. But Mohammad Raied, head of Libya’s General Chamber of Commerce Federation, estimated the cost of these projects at about $ 50 billion.
On February 5, Libya’s rival political groups agreed during UN-mediated talks in Geneva to form an interim government to lead the country to elections in December. Libyan delegates elected Mohammad Menfi head of a three-member presidential council and Dbeibah as the new prime minister.
Libyans hope the government will end years of civil war that have engulfed the country since dictator Moammar Gadhafi was assassinated and killed in 2011.
The Joint Military Commission 5 + 5 held a meeting on Tuesday in the coastal city of Sirte to discuss security issues. Menfi and the UN Special Envoy to Libya Jan Kubis took part in the discussion. Representatives from the warring parties discussed the opening of the coastal road along the north of the country and the alien of foreign mercenaries, the presidential council said in a statement after the meeting. Efforts to open the coastal road connecting Sirte to Misrata have been completed after the region was cleared of mines and several safety points were established in the area, the statement said.
Although the peace process has been ongoing without major conflicts so far, there are still occasional disagreements that trouble the country and raise concerns about the possibility of achieving stability.
Putschist General Khalifa Haftar’s militia welcomed the election of a transitional authority and the dismissed general will continue to function independently of the legitimate government. Haftar continues to lead armed militias and calls himself “the commander of the Libyan army”, in full respect of Menfi, head of the Presidential Council.
On Sunday, the Libyan premiere had to cancel a planned visit to Benghazi after the Haftar militia prevented a government-protected plane and protocol personnel from landing.
On Wednesday, Haftar demanded an apology from Dbeibah for his recent comments about the eastern city of Benghazi.
On Thursday, during a tour of the capital Tripoli, where he met displaced people from Benghazi, Dbeibah said: “Benghazi will return to your homeland and you will return to your families.”
In a statement broadcast by the pro-Haftar Libya al-Hadath TV channel, the militia, which calls itself the “Commander-in-Chief of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces”, said it had “received hundreds of requests from various segments of society and from all tribes and families of martyrs and the wounded that the Prime Minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, must make an explicit and clear apology for what happened when he mentioned last week that Benghazi will return to his homeland. ”
“These statements are rejected, and he (Dbeibah) must respect the blood of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives against terrorism and extremism,” the statement said.
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