In terms of public housing, how bad is the situation?
I think there are requests for more than 150,000 public houses; the government should build more than 300,000 over the next three years, so an average of 100,000 houses per year. I think this number is beyond what they can do. I don’t think private and public companies together could achieve this number.
When we talked with the Chairman of NOC Dr. Berruien, he estimated that they need about US $40 billion in investment to upgrade the oil and gas infrastructure. In your opinion, how much investment does Libya need in order to upgrade everything?
The last figure I heard was US $300 billion as the budget for everything in Libya for the next 3 years, so about US $100 billion per year. I would not be surprised if 30% of this budget will go for renewing the oil and gas infrastructure and also for infrastructure in terms of roads and airports etc.
Going back to the previous question regarding housing, I think that Libya is still making the same mistake in that they should have more private investment in housing and construction. This isn’t happening due to the banking system, but if they can review the banking system they will be able to solve this problem easily.
I believe there are many private companies in Libya that could provide housing, without relying on the government and have direct relations with their customers as is done all over the world. Insisting on providing public housing only from the government is an idea that I think we have seen all over the world a long time ago. Just by reviewing the banking system and having a master plan ready for each city so that we know what the infrastructure will be like and where we can build etc. over the next 2 years to be able to start a construction project is in my opinion the solution for public housing development in Libya.
We have talked to the government about this and they don’t have a problem with the idea, the only problem is that changing the banking rules will take some time. The Central Bank does believe in the idea, and they have a lot of money deposited in the bank, and as you know having money in the banks is a very bad sign. The bank should be working with the money and not just keeping it on the shelf.