December 2024
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On September 10, 2023, two dams near Derna, in eastern Libya, collapsed amid a strong rainstorm. The ensuing flood killed at least 4,352 people and displaced almost 45,000, while another 8,000 remain missing and should be presumed dead. Since the disaster, journalists and nongovernmental organizations have highlighted several factors that contributed to the collapse, including suspected corruption that may have led to the dams’ extreme frailty. In this report, The Sentry sheds additional light on these schemes, linking them to the Dabaiba family’s leadership of the Organization for the Development of Administrative Centers prior to 2011 and showing how new corruption risks under the Haftar family could lead to similar infrastructure failures in the future.
Among several factors contributing to the loss of life and material damage in Derna was the dams’ poor condition. From 2007 to 2010, Libya’s General Water Authority (GWA) paid Arsel İnşaat Company Limited, a minor Turkish construction firm, and other companies for rehabilitation work that never happened. Such inaction was indicative of a broader pattern of corruption that affected much of Libya’s non-oil-related construction and maintenance, especially in the years leading up to the 2011 uprisings. Schemes such as those affecting the maintenance of Derna’s dams were largely orchestrated through the Organization for the Development of Administrative Centers (ODAC), a state-owned body then controlled by relatives of Abdelhamid Dabaiba, the current prime minister in Tripoli, western Libya.
Today, post-disaster, the reconstruction of Derna is underway.In this ongoing process, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s family, which rules eastern and southern Libya, has complete control of new infrastructure contracts. Early indications suggest that the Haftar clan may be resorting to corrupt practices similar to those of the Dabaibas, potentially using foreign companies as conduits to divert public funds.
Despite having occurred more than 15 years ago, the anomalies in ODAC’s interactions with Arsel remain acutely relevant in present-day Libya. They illustrate how officials may have exploited existing companies to steal billions from their own country’s public coffers. This suspected transnational method of theft, or variations thereof, may be being employed in 2024—a time when large-scale infrastructure projects are used by Libyan leaders to justify spending significant public funds. By uncovering past fraud and scrutinizing contemporary contracting practices, this report seeks to contribute to the prevention of further corruption in Libyan infrastructure.