TRIPOLI, 15 June 2003 — Libya’s prime minister has been sacked and replaced with the former economy minister after appeals by Muammar Qaddafi for radical reform of the Socialist-style economy, the top legislative body said yesterday. The African Unity Ministry, reflecting Libyan leader Qaddafi’s passionate pan-Africanism, was also scrapped as part of the Cabinet reshuffle announced by the General People’s Congress.
Qaddafi’s plan for a “United States of Africa” was dismissed from the agenda of an African Union summit in Ethiopia in February. Other African leaders said the continent was not ripe for complete integration. The moves by the Congress, replacing Prime Minister Mubarak Abdallah Al-Shamikh by former Economy and Trade Minister Shokri Ghanem, followed calls by Qaddafi for reforms, possibly leading to some type of “popular capitalism”. Qaddafi has cautiously begun to open up the North African country’s oil-dependent centralized economy to the local private sector and outside investment in the past four years.
“The revolution leader Muammar Qaddafi has called for the abolition of the public sector because this sector needs people of the highest skills, with strong nationalistic beliefs and dedication to the public interest,” state news agency Jana quoted Qaddafi on Friday as telling the Congress.
The system had failed, as it did in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, because it relied on staff who were incompetent and did not care about their country’s interests.
The African Unity Ministry, which had been headed by Ali Abdesselam Triki, was merged into the Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation Ministry, the Congress said. The sacked Triki had been Qaddafi’s point man for Libyan diplomacy in Africa and the Arab world. The Congress’ statement said Ghanem was replaced by Abdelkader Omar Belkheir at the Economy and Trade Ministry.
