Muammar Gaddafi has announced plans to dismantle the Government, hand the riches from Africa's biggest oil reserves to the people and nationalise foreign oil operations that have recently been allowed back into the country. The announcement has left diplomats and the 40 overseas oil companies operating in the country on edge.

Posted May 12, 2011

Gaddafi Offers Oil and Power to People

By Philip Pank in Tripoli

February 21, 2009 "The Times" -- Forty years into the revolution he unleashed on Libya Muammar Gaddafi has announced plans to dismantle the Government, hand the riches from Africa's biggest oil reserves to the people and nationalise foreign oil operations that have recently been allowed back into the country.

“The administration has failed and the state economy has failed. Enough is enough. The solution is, we Libyans take directly the oil money and decide what to do with the money,” he says.

To end the corruption that has sapped the vast oil wealth, bundles of cash should be delivered to the poor, three quarters of the ministries should cease to exist and the workers should run hospitals and schools.

The announcement has left diplomats and the 40 overseas oil companies operating in the country on edge.

Colonel Gaddafi, once derided as a “Mad Dog”, is basking in a new-found friendship with the West but anything is possible in a land that reflects the quixotic nature of its leader.

Across the country, from the smallest desert oasis to campuses and state companies, thousands of people are taking up his proposals at official public gatherings. Never before have the annual Libya's Basic People Congresses - in effect the country's top executive and legislative bodies - been invited to consider such reform.

“Libyans, this is your historic opportunity to take your oil wealth, power and full freedom,” Colonel Gaddafi said on the eve of the five-day round of meetings.

Many feel that they have not had their equal share even if outward signs of poverty in the deeply religious society are scarce. Satellite dishes adorn the low concrete apartment blocks; bread is cheap; petrol is 17 cents a litre, and imported cars carry families along the fertile coastal strip. Disaffection rarely spills into violence.

But the call to reform has been eagerly embraced by many. At the African University for Higher Studies, Abdul Hamid Amer told a meeting: “We must abolish the Cabinet. The ministries of health, education and transport should be abolished. The people should be left to run the ministries on their own.”

An outline of the plans is that $33 billion (£23 billion) from oil revenues, less $21 billion paid to foreign contractors to build roads, houses, hospitals and schools, leaves $12 billion for the people. That, plus $6 billion left over from last year's budget and $8 billion from taxes and tourism, leaves five million Libyans in line for a bonanza. Flow charts set out eight alternative plans for redistributing the wealth, for consideration at congress.

Not everyone has bought into the plan, Proposal for Distribution of the Wealth. Dr Bashir Zimbl said the draft was “a wrong title because the wealth has been distributed in the past and they are now playing with it”.

A young father confided: “We are not against giving the people the money but not in this way. We think they should have higher wages and fight corruption.”

Once the public deliberations end tomorrow they will be handed up to the 600-strong General People's Congress for consideration on March 2.

In theory, Colonel Gaddafi bows to their judgment and the people will then learn what is to become of their money. The Western oil companies that have been operating in Libya since 2003 - when Colonel Gaddafi abandoned his weapons of mass destruction and Libya took responsibility for bombing Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie - may also have a keener grasp of their future. Another motion is to nationalise foreign-run oil projects.

Among those to have arrived since international sanctions were lifted are the British groups BG, BP and Shell. “Obviously we do not know how it will go,” said one petrochemicals group. “At the moment we are not investing in plants and kit. We are investing in surveys, so there is nothing to lose.”

Diplomats, too, are waiting to see which way the whimsical leader will blow as he strikes his last policies before the 40th anniversary of his revolution in September.

“It has been a rollercoaster ride for Libyans and countries that need to relate to Libya,” one Western diplomat said.

“Today, at the international level, Libya is pretty much centre stage at the UN and AU and is negotiating a stronger relationship with the EU. I see more for Libya to gain by keeping in that direction so I expect it will, but the international normalisation is moving faster than domestic reform.”

Yet even seasoned observers have learnt not to second guess Colonel Gaddafi.

Libya delays Gaddafi oil plan

Politicians shelve plan aimed at distributing oil revenues directly to people.

By Al Jazeera

March 03, 2009 "Al Jazeera" -- Libya's executive and legislative bodies have voted to delay an oil distribution scheme of Muammar Gaddafi, the state news agency Jana has reported.

The Libyan leader, who has advocated handing out oil revenues directly to the people to beat endemic corruption in the government, would have distributed about $32bn this year alone.

The results of the vote were announced at a meeting of the General Public Congress (GPC) at Gaddafi's home town, Sirte, on Tuesday.

Only 64 of the 468 Basic People Congresses (LBPCs), or municipalities, voted for Gaddafi's plan to hand out the money now, while 251 endorsed the plan in principle "but asked for [it] to be delayed until appropriate measures were put in place".

Of the country's five million people, about one million of the poorest could receive up to 30,000 dinars ($22,990) a year each if the initial plan was endorsed, according to government estimates debated at LBPC meetings.

Libyans would forfeit their right to medical services and other traditional public services in return for a share of oil revenues.

Dissident view

The vote to postpone Gaddafi's plan will block further discussions on the distribution of oil money for several months at least.

Various factions in the LBPC will now have time to reach a consensus that commentators say will curb the leader's eagerness to plug the wealth gap between the poor majority of the country and the rich, who many Libyans say monopolise power and money.

LBPCs are Libya's most senior executive and legislative bodies, which vote on laws and government policy. In practice, however, Gaddafi formulates the key policies.

Libyan dissidents wrote in comments posted on the internet that, even if the voters approved the scheme, Gaddafi's plan would not work because government corruption would always prevent a fair distribution of the country's oil wealth.

"None of this will ever happen," one Libyan in Sirte told Al Jazeera. "This is a lie."

Sources for video:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5776215.ece

http://alexandravaliente.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/in-2009-gaddafi-proposed-na...

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/03/200933183343913989.html

http://www.energy-pedia.com/article.aspx?articleid=134161

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/03/03/libya-oil-idUKL359112620090303

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-the-aggression-in-Libya/186296531416909

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28081.htm