(Author: Libyan Gazette Editorial Staff)
Hassan Bouhadi submits his resignation from the LIA.
On Monday, the UN-backed unity government (GNA) formed a five-member committee to look after Libya’s $67 billion sovereign wealth fund.
The committee is not meant to discard the assets of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), said the GNA in a statement, instead its purpose is to protect the fund and follow the legal cases that the LIA is involved in.
Ali Mahmoud Hassan Mohamed will be the head of the committee, said the GNA. Neither of the two rival chairmen of the LIA are on the committee and no details were given about the duration the committee would serve for.
After becoming official in December 2015, the GNA has been working towards unifying the country, and despite being faced with harsh opposition in the east, the GNA continues to work towards national unity and stability.
Unifying key state institutions like the National Oil Corporation, the central bank and the LIA, are steps towards unifying Libya.
The GNA’s announcement came after one of the rival chairmen of the LIA, Hassan Bouhadi, submitted his resignation.
Bouhadi was backed by the House of Representatives, the eastern parliament, who originally appointed him after the GNA took over the capital and its institutions.
Before the LIA split, Abdul-Magid Breish, Bouhadi’s rival, was appointed chairman of the fund in June 2013. Breish took a year off, after which he claimed that the Libyan Court of Appeal reinstated him.
The LIA is currently involved in lawsuits against two major investment banks, the US based Goldman Sachs and the French Societe Generale, in hopes of winning back $3 billion that the LIA lost in trades suggested to them by the investment banks.
A UN Security Council sanction that has been in effect since 2011 has over a third of the LIA’s assets frozen to ensure the money is not misused.