The Chairman of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) Mustafa Sanalla has rejected the decision of the Libyan Prime Minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, to sack him and replace the board of directors with a new one headed by Farhat Bengdara.
In a video statement on the NOC’s Facebook page late on Wednesday, Sanalla accused Dbeibah of working for the benefit of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) through appointing its ally in Libya, Farhat Bengdara as oil chief, adding that Bengdara wants to allocate to the UAE 600 million dollars of Libyan oil every year with the consent of Dbeiba, whom he called a strong ally to the UAE over the benefit of the Libyan people.
Sanalla also described Dbeibah as usurper of power and an illegitimate PM leading an illegitimate government whose mandate expired when the House of Representatives (HoR) withdrew confidence from it back in March 2022, rejecting his NOC reshuffling decision and calling it null and void.
He reiterated that the whole idea of the replacement of the board of directors of the NOC is aimed to benefit the UAE via both Dbeibah and Bengdara, reiterating that the NOC is bigger than them both and than the UAE itself, in fact, he said, the NOC is older in age than the whole UAE.
Sanalla warned Dbeibah of approaching the NOC headquarters or its employees and companies, saying that the “honorable Libyans and forces in Tripoli wouldn’t allow it.”
He also revealed that he had allocated to Dbeibah 165 billion dinars from the NOC revenues and the former had never informed the authorities how he spent the money.
Sanalla defied Dbeibah’s decision and rendered it illegal as he is no longer a head of government, vowing to stay in office to protect the only revenue source for all Libyans, reiterating that Dbeibah has no legal capacity to issue any decisions on sovereign state institutions.
