Leaked documents reveal new agreements between GNA, Turkey

According to the contract signed between Accord Finance Minister Faraj Bumtari and Turkish businessman Mohammed Kocabasha, the details of which were published by Libyan media, the Government of National Accord decided to hand over the customs administration to a foreign party, the Turkish "SCK" company, which, according to the agreement, became the first responsible for monitoring all goods. It was imported to the capital, Tripoli, by sea, and supervised, and it was given an unprecedented mandate to control the country's imports.

According to Presidential Accord Council Decision No. 396 of 2020 issued last month, permission is granted to contract with the Turkish company "SCK" whose headquarters is in Istanbul and owned by Erdogan's friend Mohammed Kocabash to undertake the tasks of establishing and managing an electronic system and providing data and statistics for all goods supplied to Libya (quantity, type, source).

And according to the contents of the contract, this agreement is valid for a period of 8 years, and one of the parties may not terminate it unilaterally, and if one of the parties does not notify the other of his unwillingness to renew, before the end of the contract within 6 months from the date of expiry, then the contract is considered to have been automatically renewed for a period. Another 8 years.

In addition to, the Turkish company will reap great financial benefits, as the Government of National Accord allows the company to deduct 70% of the total revenues in the first 5 years, provided that it deducts 60% of the total revenues for the remaining 3 years in the contract, and also allows it to establish a headquarters in Libya to practice its activity.

This agreement sparked the anger of customs officials in Libya, who considered that enabling an external party to manage the customs authority's business and supervise and control incoming goods into the country under unfair conditions, which have economic and financial harm to Libya, and as a nationalization contract for the most important Libyan vital facilities for Turkey.

In this context, the Chamber of Maritime Navigation, in a correspondence addressed to the presidents of the Supreme Council for GNA and the Presidential Council, expressed its surprise at the decision to contract with a Turkish company to manage the Customs Authority, and considered that "the insistence on this contract raises suspicion and suspicion and raises the fear of corruption associated with this process."

The Chamber indicated that the entry of a foreign party to control the Libyan sovereign authorities makes it easy to control the database and commercial statistics on strategic stocks of goods, and it considered that it is information that is prohibited for circulation except by the relevant sovereign authorities.

And also continued that the Turkish company contracted with is unknown, and it has no clear spread except in some unstable African countries that are going through stages of confusion and economic corruption for the purpose of levying unlawfully incoming fees and goods in order to reap hundreds of millions annually in exchange for nothing but providing data for imported goods.

Accordingly, the Chamber called for the need to stop the decision to contract with this company until a state is held and a workshop organized under the supervision of the state without intermediaries, brokers and shell companies from abroad, in order to avoid suspicions of corruption and prevent the leakage of information on the state’s strategic stocks to external parties.

The contract also stands as an obstacle to the will of any national Libyan government to terminate the Turkish company contract in the future in case it fails, and it will cost Libya huge sums if it decides to terminate the contract.

T/S

ANHA