THE WESTERN DESERT TODAY LIBYA DEBATES HOW TO SPEND ITS OIL REVENUES

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31196, 21 October 1966, Page 10

THE WESTERN DESERT TODAY LIBYA DEBATES HOW TO SPEND ITS OIL REVENUES

ißu a special correspondent of -The Times "I (Reprinted from “The fitnes. ) Libya’s most pressing problem is one that might well be the envy of a less well-endowed country. It is in short how best to spend >' e rocketing national revenue that has come with the spate of oil discover e in the last five or six years. In rather less than five years since the fiist oil well went into production the country’s oil revenues have risen to oyer £lOO million a vear in 1965-66. and in the current year they are expected to be of the order of £l4O million —boosted by the start of production at British Petroleum’s Serir field towards the end of the year.

There are heartening signs throughout the country of the Administration's reaction to the new-found wealth. Everywhere new buildings—and especially houses—are rising, the streets of Benghazi, Tripoli and Tobruk have been torn open to take sewage pipes and power and communication cables, stretches of new roads are well used by new motor cars. But strangely the first signs of prosperity to be seen by the traveller to Libya are the deserted farms and fields surrounding the Tripoli airport. Already the boundaries of fields are becoming obscured by the sand that creeps up from the south, and row upon orderly row of olive trees are dying for lack of care and irrigation. Countryside Denuded This is the nub of Libya's problem. A rising standard of living and the seemingly easy pickings of urban life have denuded the countryside of agricultural labour. Twelve years ago one in every five of Libya’s population lived in its cities. Now the ratio is one in three, and shows no sign of slowing down in spite of the Government’s efforts to stimulate farming.! Already the country is | importing fully half of its; food.

This may not seem unusual for a country that is largely desert fringed along the Mediterranean coast with formidable wadis of rock. But in its time the area around the Jebel Akhdar of Cyrenaica (the Green Mountain) had been a granary for Greek and Roman, and earlier this century the Italians found satisfaction enough in farming the coastal belt while despising the vast desert to the south which has in the long run yielded the true wealth of the country. As well as trying to encourage a return to agricultural pursuits, the Administration has made efforts to stimulate local manufacturing projects as a counterbalance to oil. This is no mean task, as can be seen from the fact that, in 1965, 99 J per cent of Libya’s exports by value were accounted for by crude oil. Still textile, leather, chemical and metal products businesses have been encouraged. And the Petroleum Minister, Mr Fuad Kubazi, has a committee studying the possible entry of the Government into

partnership with outside oil interests to give Libya an interest in refining oil and perhaps marketing refined products in Europe. Houses And Roads Even so, the great bulk of Libya’s new-found wealth has i gone initially the same way as in most developing counj tries. A vast infra-structure of housing, roads, bridges and ■ communications is being laid ! down. In the next five years i 100,000 houses will be built, the bulk of them coming in the Idris plan by which a I large part of the personal oil stake of Libya's retiring monarch, King Muhammed Idris al-Senussi, will go to providing free or highly subsidised housing. Initially these are being offered to tempt the nomadic Beduin into a place in society. Additionally £22 million will be spent on schools and universities, £12,500,000 on hospitals and medical services, and £3B million on public works. And to the relief of many who have tried to make a telephone call or send a picture postcard from Libya, over £27 million is earmarked for communications. ' The greatest stumblingblock to the ambitious plans of the King and the Council of Ministers is the acute shortage of labour. Immensely hospitable l to guests I and visitors, Libya has not thrown open its doors to| immigrant labour in spite of the crying needs of the building industry, which is the only one. apart from oil, that has so far got off the ground. Though Libya is a huge country of close on 700,000 square miles its population is little over 1,500,000. So far its experience with selective immigration has not been entirely happy. A negotiated influx of Moroccans was a singular failure; they were not compatible with Libyans, j But there is official hope of j greater success with Sudanese and Lebanese. Italian Builders On the other hand, Libya i is greatly indebted to other countries for professional services. Though there is still a strong anti-Italian feeling, especially in Cyrenaica, Italian architects are spearheading the building plans. It is not unusual to find a heavy leavening of Formosan Chinese doctors and a preponderance of Yugoslavian

i nurses in the Libyan hospitals. ' And Italian. French, and [British contractors have won I work along with local contractors on the 1500 kilometre | coastal road from the border with Tunis to the United Arab Republic. ! However, this flirtation with I internationalism does noi ! obscure the fact that Libya's (unity has not existed long [There is still a world of I difference between the [sophisticated, almost metroI politan, people of Tripolitania [ and the ascetic and imperious : Cyrenaicans. The third province in the federation, the Fezzan, is little more than a i collection of scattered oases I The Cyrenaicans’ belief in i their superiority over the Tripolitanians arises from their assertion that they were the architects and builders of the country’s independence. This might have been tempered if the earlier estimates that any oil in Libya would be found in Tripolitania had proved correct Unfortunately it did not, and the best fields look certain now to be in the eastern province. There is still too in Tripoli an aura of Italianism that raises the hackles on a Cyrenaican. The King's Influence The unifying force is the King. To the Senussis of the I East he is both warlike chief land religious leader. Tripoli (tania and the Fezzan accept and respect him as the winner l of independence, the scourge ’of the imperialists. But King Idris is an old man, and there is much speculation on what will happen after his death. There has been discontent among the young and educated. Fast as the oil revenues are passed on to the country it is not fast enough for a generation awakened to the fact that they have inherited a nation of great wealth and | potential power. [ Cairo Radio is not playing a passive roie in a drama [which gives it for a neighbour another powerful Arab nation. And although the Egyptian stranglehold on Libyan education is being steadily loosened much of Cairo’s groundwork has already been laid. That demonstrations have not been frequent may owe more to the existence of a strong military force than to a lessening of the discontent among the Egyptian-influenced students.

On the other hand Libya is clearly conscious of the advantages of American and European links. Certainly there is one fairly simple way in which Europe and America can be made more conscious of Libya and the Libyans, and the Council of Ministers will surely tackle soon the dearth of tourist facilities in a country rich in natural advantages. Golden Beaches Tunis has already proved how easily Europeans can be lured farther south, away from the congested northern coast of the Mediterranean. All along the Gulf of Sirte Libya can offer superb golden beaches. The climate on the coast compares favourably with Italy and Greece. In Cyrene, Appolonia and Lepcis Magna it has Greek and Roman ruins in excellent condition. The wadis of the north provide spectacular scenery and in the south the vast sand seas could prove irresistible to the more intrepid tourist. With reservations regarding the slow tackling of the farming problem and its failure to solve the labour shortage Libya must be congratulated on the way it has got the oil revenues moving through the economy without letting inflation run riot. It has not indulged in ostentatious spending to try to hide its difficulties. The money is being spent wisely and honestly. Whether this will prove enough for more radical elements remains to be seen.