Muhammed Busawwa, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in the provisional government, talks about the demand of the Egyptian Ministry of Labour to pay dues to two million Egyptian workers who were forced to leave Libya due to the security situation. More details about this topic and others in this interview.

Muhammed Busawwa, the Egyptian Ministry of Labour has demanded paying compensation to two million Egyptian workers who recently left Libya, fleeing the war. How have you addressed this issue?

Muhammed Busawwa, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in the provisional government, talks about the demand of the Egyptian Ministry of Labour to pay dues to two million Egyptian workers who were forced to leave Libya due to the security situation. More details about this topic and others in this interview.

Muhammed Busawwa, the Egyptian Ministry of Labour has demanded paying compensation to two million Egyptian workers who recently left Libya, fleeing the war. How have you addressed this issue?

First, the number is exaggerated. The Egyptian state received complaints from the Egyptian workers who left Libya and all those submitting a complaint have been included as claimants. The number cannot be true.

There are three categories of Egyptians in Libya. First, those who came through governmental contracts and they are few – their rights are maintained by the respective government contracting entities.

Second, those recruited by the private sector workers through employment contracts will have their rights guaranteed by their employers. Our task, as a ministry, is to apply pressure on those employers to pay their dues and maybe even prosecute the defaulters.

Third, the majority of Egyptian workers entered either illegally or as tourists and then practiced their professions in Libya illegally. They are not entitled to claim any dues. The Egyptian government understands this, and we have agreed on forming a joint committee. We delegated our Deputy Minister for Training Affairs, and the Egyptians delegated an official of theirs. Coordination has already started between both sides to discuss this matter and set an agreed-upon mechanism.

Personally, I do not think that this issue will affect our relationship with Egypt or vice versa.

Moving to the internal affairs, do not you think there is a real problem regarding the organization of the ministry staff?

I do not think there is a problem even if the sums paid to the employees in Libya amounted to LYD 50 billion (about USD 36 billion) for example. We have plans to tackle and solve these problems. We have undisclosed discussions about how to get rid of surplus employees, including through moving them to other activities.

How much is the Ministry’s estimated surplus labour?

The number in Libya amounts to 108,000. Their salaries are paid from Tripoli except in a few cases, where employees have been re-instated and paid by the provisional government.

I, as the Minister of Labour, stand against employing more jobseekers in the public sector; this sector cannot bear any more burdens. This matter should be handled by the private sector with our intervention, as a ministry, to organize this sector.

What do you mean by intervention to organize the private sector?

The private sector is employing workers and paying them salaries sometimes as low as LYD 200 sometimes (USD 145) a month. Furthermore, private employers fail to enrol the workers in social security and to pay taxes. Hence, we have to intervene and impose conditions on the private sector. However, our plans will remain unimplementable so long as the country is divided.

Are there a specific number of reinstated employees during your tenure?

In the part under the control of the provisional government (eastern Libya), there are about 70,000 jobseekers, including those who were employed in the previous district division system in 2006 and 2007 and we could not reinstate them. The decision was then suspended in Tripoli, and we have worked on reactivating it.

In the meantime and until the situation settles down, what are the most important challenges you are addressing in the Ministry?

Currently, the situation at the Ministry of Labour is difficult. Most of its resources, powers and projects were withdrawn under the previous regime, which has crippled us. In 2008-2009, all the technical formation institutes were disengaged from us and put under the Ministry of Education. Small- and medium-sized enterprises and the Employment Fund were moved to the Ministry of Economy. We are intending to form a committee consisting of members from the ministries of education, economy and labour to retrieve what has been taken from our ministry, and the cabinet is aware of this.