The Libyan administration is split in two power centres. One at the extreme East of the country is Tobruk. It is managed by the Libyan parliament and is in charge of management of oil and other petroleum products to the benefit of the East of Libya. The other is found at the extreme west, in Tripoli. It is in charge of management of the Libyan civil servants, specifically the human resources employed in the health and education sectors.
And in between these two powers, Derna hangs outside of the full control of either Tobruk or Tripoli. Here in the city, the average citizen does not know to whom to turn. Hence most lie low, unable to take any initiative.
On the field in Derna, neither one nor the other centre of power maintains a military presence. To the contrary, militias outside of any control are dominating the city.
Ahmed is a Libyan coming from Derna. He works in the Education sector, administratively answering Tripoli authorities where his ministry is located. At the same time, financially, he depends from Tobruk
That does not make thing easy for Ahmed. Both power centres do not recognise each other? Though both recognize that Ahmed is indeed a Libyan citizen, born from Libyan parents and living in Libya. However, his administrative evaluation carried out in Tripoli is not automatically matched by Tobruk. And vice versa.
Ahmed’s case is common in most Libyan cities. And the further away one drives from a major city such as Tripoli, the more frequent and intense are these cases.
Hamdi, another average Libyan citizen, is also himself a victim of too multiple administrations. One ministry has granted him the right to be evacuated to a neighbouring country for health reasons. But the Embassy of the concerned country does not recognize the government which gave him the relevant administrative documents certifying his situation.
According to some administrators, those who suffer most are the civil servants who have been posted outside their home town. They indeed face difficulties which prevent them to acquire administrative papers such as simple pay slips.
They say that the civil service owned, before the revolution, seats and buildings outside the capital city. After the revolution, it is facing a dilemma: many reproach the headquarters to dysfunction and others that the remote decentralised agencies inside the country are not recognised by all parties.
The undersecretary of the Libyan Ministry for economy Ali Al-Mahjoub, proposes that all parties agree on a model of governance and joint management. Al-Mahjoub argues that it is the people who are paying the heaviest price for the different splitting politicians; though the people would not be responsible for that situation.
