Libya’s Administrative Control Authority (ACA) has sounded the alarm on the country’s ballooning public sector wage bill, calling for an immediate suspension of new appointments and contracts.
The ACA’s warning comes as the number of public sector employees in Libya has swelled to 2,099,200, with salary costs totaling a staggering 372 billion Libyan dinars over the past 12 years.
The World Bank reports that a whopping 89% of Libya’s labor force is employed in the public sector, based on a 2022 survey.
This has led to a 104% increase in the public sector payroll over the last four years, reaching 67.6 billion Libyan dinars (approximately $13.70 billion) last year.
The ACA attributes the surge in public sector employment and salaries to “random procedures” that have imposed unsustainable financial obligations on the state.
The authority has urged Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah to reconsider the current appointment and contracting processes, citing the need to protect the public interest.
Libya’s economy, heavily reliant on the oil and gas sector, has struggled to recover from the 2011 NATO-backed ouster of Muammar Gaddafi and the subsequent east-west split of rival factions in 2014.
The ACA’s call for a hiring freeze aims to address the country’s financial woes, but the government has yet to respond.
