PREVIEW
Rival camps' fight over the bank governorship revives fears for dollar access and public salaries
Libya's shaky deal between the Abdel Hamid Dubaiba-led regime in Tripoli and its counterpart in Tobruk under warlord Khalifa Haftar’s clan is splitting at the seams over control of billions of dollars of oil revenues. The last time this happened, it shut down eastern oil output. Oil companies worry that splitting control of the bank will disrupt foreign-exchange allocation and payments.
Central bank governor Naji Issa had offered his resignation in August 2026 but has been trying to withdraw it. The Tobruk-based eastern House of Representatives accepted Naji Issa's resignation 'in principle' on 22 October and named a bank board member Fawzi Abukhzam as interim governor. The eastern parliament backed Fawzi weeks after Al Salhin Abdulnabi al Obeid replaced Aguila Saleh as Speaker.
The High Council of State in Tripoli is divided over the appointment. Its first deputy chairman Naji Mukhtar told Issa to stay. But the High Council’s chairman Mohamed Takala, who is meant to mediate between Tripoli and Tobruk, asked Abukhzam to take over. ‘You are requested to assume your duties and carry out the functions of the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya on an interim basis, pending an agreement with the House of Representatives on the appointment of a Governor for the Central Bank,’ Takala wrote to Abukhzam last week.
Hours after Tobruk’s announcement, intruders raided the bank's Tripoli headquarters. Central bank officials said the raiders broke into the building after Issa had left the premises. They pinned the blame on ‘the defence ministry, which is tasked with protecting the bank's headquarters’.
Issa’s appointment in September 2024 had helped ease a power struggle between the rival governments over the workings of the central bank (AC Vol 67 No 17, Beijing finds partners on both sides of the Tripoli-Benghazi divide).
The governance of the central bank has repeatedly been a flash point between the rival Tripoli and Tobruk regimes. Officials in the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity have accused the of Gen Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army, which backs the Tobruk parliament, of funnelling oil and other funds illicitly via the bank (AC Vol 67 No 9, A power-sharing deal – based on oil, drones and secret cash).
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