Op-Ed: Libya does not just need new people, It needs a new system

Libya has endured a chaotic summer marked by persistent power outages, drone attacks on vital infrastructure, and widespread fuel shortages, fueling public frustration and calls for change. Since June, the country has faced multiple regional power blackouts, with armed drones targeting fuel depots, power stations, and water desalination plants. The government's inability or unwillingness to identify the perpetrators has exacerbated public anxiety.

The frequent power cuts have led to temporary shutdowns of water wells, affecting the entire country's water supply. To mitigate social unrest, the government has diverted electricity from industries and businesses to domestic users. This measure, coupled with generator reliance, has resulted in long queues at petrol stations and a spike in black-market diesel prices, with diesel disappearing from the official market.

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I believe one of the biggest mistakes we continue to make in Libya is believing that changing people will automatically change the reality.We remove one official and appoint another. We change a board of directors, appoint a new government, or replace one governor with another, and then expect different results.But we forget to ask the most important question:Is the problem really the people, or is it the system in which they operate?

Despite billions spent on the electricity generation sector, issues persist, leading to the recent removal of the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) chairman. The Governor of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) also attempted to resign last week. These events, alongside a surge in the black-market foreign exchange rate of the Libyan Dinar (LD) to over LD 9 per dollar, have intensified public demands for leadership changes across various institutions.

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The reality is that a significant part of Libya’s crisis today is not simply a crisis of individuals. It is a crisis of an institutional and operational system that has been designed, or has evolved over the years, in a way that makes it incapable of consistently producing sound results.

However, an op-ed by Naaman Elbouri, a former banker and current fintech CEO, questions whether changing personnel is the solution. Elbouri argues that Libya's crisis is fundamentally a systemic one. "I believe one of the biggest mistakes we continue to make in Libya is believing that changing people will automatically change the reality," he writes. "We remove one official and appoint another... and then expect different results."

Elbouri contends that Libya's institutional and operational system is designed or has evolved in a way that prevents consistent positive outcomes. He states that within such a system, even capable individuals struggle to achieve reforms because the "rules of the game themselves do not allow them to do so." He emphasizes that complicated procedures, unclear responsibilities, overlapping authorities, weak accountability, and conflicts of interest render institutions incapable of effective operation, suggesting that systemic reform is crucial for Libya's progress.

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When an institution operates with complicated procedures, unclear responsibilities, overlapping authorities, weak accountability, inadequate oversight and conflicts of interest, it becomes extremely difficult for anyone to operate effectively.