GNA using Libya’s money to rescue Turkish economy

Shaimaa Yahia

Reports about the Tripoli-based government of National Accord (GNA) depositing $4 billion in the Central Bank of Turkey add a new scandal to those of the Turkey-backed government in Libya.

The GNA transferred this huge amount of money to Turkey, even as Libya suffered a liquidity crunch.

Ramzi Ragab Agha, a senior official at the Central Bank of Libya, has revealed that the GNA would get interests for depositing this amount of money in the Turkish bank.

The deposit, he said, would have a positive effect on the exchange rate of the Turkish lira.

He added that the deposit would guarantee arms deals between the GNA and Ankara.

The London-based al-Arab newspaper quoted Agha as saying that the deposit would also guarantee the medical treatment of injured members of the militias backing the GNA in Turkish hospitals.

It would also guarantee the return of the rights of Turkish companies investing in Turkey under the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Agha said.

Lira collapse

The exchange rate of the Turkish lira tumbled on February 7 to its lowest since May 2019. The lira dropped 0.6% to 6.275 a dollar. In 2019, the exchange rate of the lira dropped 11% against the background of Turkish aggressions on Syria. This brings the drop in the exchange rate of the lira in the past two years to 36%.

Economic measures imposed by Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had but made the economic crisis in Turkey worse. The unemployment rate is on the rise, the inflation rate is increasing, and commodity prices are shooting up.

In 2019, around 1.3 million Turkish graduates were jobless, according to the Republican People’s Party.

Cooperation

Turkish affairs specialist, Mohamed Rabie al-Dehey, says this is not the first time GNA Prime Minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, transfers Libyan money to Turkey.

At the end of 2018, al-Dehey said, al-Sarraj paid $2.5 billion to Turkey.

At the beginning of this year, he paid an additional $5.2 billion, al-Dehey said.

These payments come in return for the support Erdogan gives the GNA, he added.