Unified Spending: Don't Expect Solutions from the Thieves
Throughout history, political and intellectual thought has been guided by an almost universal principle: solving any crisis requires a mindset fundamentally different from the one that created it. To resolve a problem, one must first reverse the very steps that led to its existence. In Libya, however, we appear—both domestically and internationally—determined to engage in a peculiar form of political absurdity by repeatedly testing failed formulas while expecting different outcomes.
Searching for salvation in the hands of those who embedded their claws deep into the body of the state represents the height of contradiction. It is irrational to expect solutions from those who have long been the source of the problem itself. Those responsible for creating a crisis rarely possess any genuine desire to resolve it. Had they truly held the solution, they would never have offered it willingly, for one simple yet profound reason: the crisis was never an accidental mistake; it became a strategic choice from which power, influence, and profit continuously flowed.
The recently announced "Unified Development Agreement" perfectly embodies this vicious cycle. From the moment it was unveiled, the agreement was effectively stillborn. Rather than addressing the roots of Libya's structural crisis, it functioned merely as a temporary and localized sedative for a chronic illness. This became immediately evident in the behavior of the parallel currency market, where the agreement produced nothing more than a slight and short-lived decline in the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar one that the market quickly absorbed as little more than "a storm in a teacup."
Currency speculators and crisis profiteers rapidly recognized that the agreement lacked both meaningful implementation mechanisms and genuine political will. Foreign currency prices soon resumed their upward trajectory, returning to levels not significantly different from those seen before the announcement. Every renewed increase translates directly into greater profits for those who benefit from Libya's distorted economy, while simultaneously crushing ordinary citizens under the weight of rising living costs and turning even their most basic necessities into unbearable burdens.
At its core, the Unified Development Agreement differs little from the countless government decisions issued over the past years under banners such as "spending rationalization" or "structural reform." These declarations possess little value beyond the ink with which they were printed. Even before the agreement entered any meaningful stage of implementation and while rival governments continued spending through precisely the same chaotic mechanisms as before the very parties that signed it had already begun threatening to abandon it and withdraw from their commitments.
This confusion became particularly evident in the recent remarks of Issa Al-Aribi, head of the Unified Agreement Committee within the House of Representatives, who openly acknowledged that the agreement had never been implemented and warned of cancelling it altogether, effectively returning the country to square one. The irony, however, is that Libya never truly left square one in the first place. Rather, its political elite have mastered the art of recycling the same deadlock under different names, creating the illusion of political movement while the country remains trapped in precisely the same swamp.
Those who profit from division manufacture crises to secure their continued survival. They then present themselves as architects of the solution, signing agreements designed merely to calm the troubled surface created by their own actions while leaving the deeper currents untouched. Before long, they abandon these agreements altogether, returning the country to where it began while they themselves return to harvesting influence, wealth, and political advantage.
Amid this web of overlapping interests, one fundamental question inevitably arises: how naïve must we be to believe that those who created the problem will genuinely seek to solve it?
Reality has asked this question repeatedly, though in different forms. Yet perhaps repetition is no longer necessary, because the real problem is not that we have failed to hear the answer it is that we refuse to understand it.
The competing governments, the House of Representatives, and the country's entrenched political and financial elites were themselves responsible for planting the seeds of institutional fragmentation. They deepened Libya's administrative and financial divisions and benefited from every stage of the country's disintegration. Can any rational observer truly believe that these same actors now possess the seeds of its recovery?
The conventional answer would suggest that everything depends upon the sincerity of their intentions. Yet after years of painful experience with these institutions, how much naïveté does it require to believe that such intentions could suddenly transform into genuine concern for the national interest?
Examining the incentives governing these actors reveals a direct contradiction between their continued political survival and the establishment of a genuine state based upon institutions and the rule of law. Today they possess the authority to authorize expenditures worth hundreds of millions through nothing more than personal signatures. Why would they voluntarily accept systems of unified oversight capable of restricting both their discretion and their influence?
They alone enjoy privileged access to foreign currency at the official exchange rate whenever they choose. A decline in the parallel market exchange rate would significantly reduce the extraordinary profits generated through these distortions. What incentive, then, would encourage them to eliminate the very system from which they benefit?
The crisis itself has become their natural habitat. It justifies the endless extension of their mandates, preserves their political positions, and safeguards their privileges. Resolving the crisis would inevitably signal the end of their political relevance. History offers few examples of ruling elites willingly engineering their own disappearance.
Continuous spending outside unified and legally approved budgets, the absence of genuine transparency and financial disclosure, and the use of discretionary spending to purchase political loyalty all function as mechanisms for preserving the existing order. Expecting these same actors to rationalize public expenditure or genuinely unify Libya's financial institutions is no different from asking a thirsty traveler to rely upon a mirage. The problem lies neither in legal texts nor in the wording of political agreements, but in the identity of those signing them and in the interests they seek to protect.
Continuing to treat Libya's current political bodies as partners in the solution merely perpetuates a false political consciousness. Their inability to resolve the crisis is not the issue; rather, they have little desire to do so, because the survival of the crisis guarantees the survival of their privileges.
Escaping Libya's political deadlock therefore begins with acknowledging one uncomfortable truth: those responsible for the collapse cannot become the architects of reconstruction. Real solutions will never emerge from regional or financial power-sharing arrangements negotiated among individuals who have burdened the country with years of debt, dysfunction, and decline. The first genuine step toward recovery requires stripping the architects of the crisis of their monopolistic political legitimacy and seeking new national pathways beyond institutions and figures who prosper whenever Libya declines and grow wealthier every time its citizens grow poorer.