The Libyan National Transitional Council has set up a committee to investigate allegations of corruption in Libya’s oil sector during the Gaddafi regime.
According to a report by Reuters, the committee will be independent of both the National Oil Company and oil ministry, and will have a wide-ranging remit which may include divestment of current contracts is graft is unearthed.
“This committee will study the old files of the oil sector and we are looking for corruption in the sector in the past,” Salem Gannan, told Reuters.
The committee is comprised of former political exiles and oil sector veterans. The presence of the latter group may raise questions over how objective the new committee can truly be.
In a bid to resolve one of the most damaging incidents during the anti-Gaddafi campaign, the NTC has also named Ali Abdelaziz Saad Al-Essawi, a former NTC deputy prime minister as the chief suspect in the killing of General Abdel Fatah Younis, one of the rebel movement’s most senior military commanders, who was killed in mysterious circumstances after being arrested by NTC forces during the campaign.
At a news conference broadcast on Libyan television last week which was attended by the head of the National Transitional Council in Libya, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil and the deputy general prosecutor, NTC chief military prosecutor Yussef Al-Aseifr mentioned Ali Abdelaziz Saad Al-Essawi, as chief suspect, according to the Tripoli Post.
