Qatari website: Haftar moves to prevent Egyptian companies from implementing strategic projects in western Libya
A Qatari website confirmed that the American Khalifa Haftar is currently moving to prevent Egyptian companies from implementing strategic projects in the western region, as he offered bribes amounting to $2 million to stop these projects.
The Qatari “Arabi 21” website reported that Belkacem and Saddam Haftar are the ones leading efforts with parties in the western region to thwart projects that were contracted for hundreds of millions of dollars with 3 Egyptian companies.
The website indicated that Belkacem and Saddam Haftar are exerting great pressure on the official responsible for implementing these Egyptian projects in Libya, Adel Abdel Mohsen, to disrupt the completion of the Third Ring Road project in Tripoli, and a number of other projects.
The report described the pressure as primarily “political,” and comes in the form of “enticement and intimidation,” and its aim is to show the failure of Al-Dabaiba government to fulfill any of its pledges.
The report added, “Belkacem and Saddam offered engineer Adel Abdel Mohsen a bribe amounting to $2 million to be deposited in an Emirati bank account in exchange for stopping work on the projects.”
It continued, “Abdel Mohsen refused to deal with the offer in a diplomatic manner, so as not to stop the implementation of other projects for Egyptian companies in Ghat, Ubari, and Gallo in the southern region, which are under Haftar’s control.”
The report revealed that Haftar’s two sons attempted to carry out “criminal operations” against some Egyptian engineers and workers working on the Third Ring Road project, so that work stopped under the pretext of the absence of security.
It stated that the security authorities in Tripoli arrested a person intending to carry out an attack targeting Egyptian workers, but it was launched with the intervention of the Chairman of the Reconstruction and Stability Committee and the Head of the Medical Supply and Treatment Services Authority of the Government of Eastern Libya, Hatem Oraibi.
The report stated that “Araibi intervened with the head of Libyan intelligence, Hussein Al-Ayeb, who in turn put pressure on the security agency detaining the aforementioned person, until they released him, after paying a bribe of 1.65 million Libyan dinars in denominations of 20 and 10 dinars, while Oraibi pledged not to repeat the matter, Pointing out that this person’s move was individual and neither Balqasim nor Saddam had anything to do with it.”
It is noteworthy that, in 2021, Al-Dabaiba government approved contracting procedures with Egyptian companies to implement the Third Ring Road project in Tripoli at a cost of 4.263 billion dinars.
