A view of the Central Bank of Libya in Tripoli, Libya, August 26, 2024. REUTERS
TRIPOLI, April 11 (Reuters) – Libya’s two rival legislative bodies have approved the country’s first unified state budget in more than a decade, its central bank said in a statement on Saturday.
The oil-producing North African country has been divided since a 2014 civil war that spawned two administrations in the west and east. Its last unified national budget was agreed in 2013. The central bank said the approval of the budget by the two rival legislative chambers could help strengthen financial stability, marking an important move toward ending years of financial division.
The two legislative chambers are the eastern-based House of Representatives (HoR) that was elected in 2014 and the High Council of State in the west which was formed as part of a 2015 political agreement and whose members were drawn from a parliament elected in 2012.
The agreement approving the budget was signed by Essa Aribi, a representative of the Benghazi-based HoR, and Abduljalel Shawesh a representative of the High Council of State in Tripoli where the internationally recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) is also based.
“This is a clear declaration that Libya is capable of overcoming its differences when a unified vision for its future is forged,” said central bank Governor Naji Issa, who supervised the signing ceremony at the bank’s headquarters in Tripoli.
Reporting by Muhammad Al Gebaly and Ahmed Elumami; Editing by Jan Harvey and Emelia Sithole-Matarise
