Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Qatrani has accused the premier Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh of making unilateral decisions which affect the cohesion of the government, and said that he holds Dbeibeh responsible if a parallel executive authority was formed in the country’s eastern region of Cyrenaica.
In an interview with Libyan Al-Ahrar channel last night, al-Qatrani questioned Dbeibeh’s intentions behind a number of decisions regarding the budget and defense.
“I am the first deputy prime minister, and I did not know about the budget and I have not seen it. The Ministerial Council has not seen it. Only a handful of specialized ministers saw it. The rest of us found out about it on Facebook,” al-Qatrani said.
He also criticized Dbeibeh’s reluctance to name a defense minister, which he says “there is no justification for it”.
al-Qatrani acknowledged that forming a parallel government “will not solve our problems”, however he said that the Libyan premier is to blame in the event that a parallel government is created.
The deputy prime minister’s remarks came a day after a meeting with Cyrenaica-based government officials took place, after which, a joint statement was issued accusing Dbeibeh of a number of violations.
al-Qatrani and Cyrenaica officials threatened “escalation” if the prime minister did not address the allegations against him.