The central bank’s statement discussed the waste of funds, estimated at $300 billion, which were in the state’s foreign currency reserve before the fall Col. Moammar Gadhafi's regime in 2011, without mentioning who was holding or investing it.
This means that those who gained power in Libya in the early days of the revolution — specifically, the previous president of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abd al-Jalil, his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood, and some Arab and Western states — are responsible for the miserable security and governance situation. This crisis could only be improved if the country became aware of the errors and preserved the public treasury and the reserves still present in the central bank.
From this perspective, the question arises: What was the bank’s goal in declaring bankruptcy and blaming those who led the country after the revolution for wasting the money and reserves? Or in dismissing the idea that Gadhafi, his sons and his cronies stole all of the public’s money? At the end of the current year, the state’s revenues were $22 billion and its expenses were $38.5 billion, meaning there was a deficit of $16 billion. When the regime was overthrown, revenue equaled around $69 billion and the reserves equaled $170 billion, gold excluded. Today, it was announced that this reserve had fallen to $119 billion as of last April.
