Libya: One of the most corrupt countries, yet still celebrates Anti-Corruption Day! |
On 9 December, Libya’s Tripoli-based Government of National Unity marked International Anti-Corruption Day with a carefully staged event that leaned more toward celebration than self-examination. At a high-profile ceremony attended by Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dbeibah and senior officials, institutions presented a series of initiatives framed as steps toward greater transparency and accountability. Among them was the unveiling by the Administrative Control Authority of a new digital platform, Raqib, introduced as a tool for monitoring government performance and receiving corruption complaints. The display of reformist intent, however, stood in sharp contrast to Libya’s entrenched reality, where corruption remains systemic and public trust in oversight bodies is steadily eroding.
The optics were familiar. Libya today has no shortage of institutions tasked with fighting corruption: the Administrative Control Authority, the Audit Bureau, the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the Attorney General’s Office, the Supreme Council for Financial Oversight, and the internal control units embedded within ministries. Together, they employ hundreds of staff and consume substantial public funds. Yet their mandates overlap, their independence is often contested, and their effectiveness is difficult to gauge. What the GNU showcased in December was therefore not a breakthrough, but merely the latest addition to an already crowded, fragmented, and deeply dysfunctional public sector — one in which public sector salaries alone accounted for 67.6 billion Libyan dinars in 2024, roughly 55 per cent of the total state budget, according to the Central Bank of Libya.
Libya’s corruption challenges appear to be deepening rather than improving, despite the presence of multiple anti-corruption agencies and high-profile campaigns. According to Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Libya........