What did the Attorney General say about the issue of the national number? And what did he not say?
A few days ago, the Libyan Attorney General, Mr. Al-Siddiq Al-Sour, held a long-awaited press conference to announce the results of investigations conducted by his office on a case that occupied public opinion for many years. It is the issue of the national number and what was rumored about the large-scale fraud that this sensitive file witnessed, and its most prominent repercussions are; Issuance of forged documents to non-Libyans, issuance of forged electoral cards to non-Libyans, non-Libyans obtaining salaries and benefits provided by the state to its citizens, and other matters that everyone considers important, but the most important of which for Libyans is, Is the Libyan identity in danger?
To answer these questions, we will try to analyze the statements of the Attorney General from two axes. What did he say, and what did he not say?
First: what did he say?
Among the most important things the Attorney General mentioned in his press conference is that the number of Libyans registered in the civil status database reached 8,617,000. Among them, investigations proved the existence of 88,819 national numbers that do not match the civil status records. The owners of these incorrect numbers have used them to obtain salaries and grants from the state, amounting to 208 million dinars.
Investigations also revealed that 48,000 national numbers were granted to non-Libyans, stressing that these numbers had been suspended, in addition to the presence of nearly 64,000 national numbers in the national number system without being registered in the civil status system.
He also talked about manipulation in the registration of death cases, pointing to the presence of deceased people whose families benefited from financial benefits after their death. He also spoke of fraud in the children’s grant system and the heads of families’ grant and others, in addition to 8690 people who receive salaries from the state with incorrect national numbers. And 17,472 incorrect national numbers get passport holders.
He also talked about the fraud that affected electoral processes and voter registration, as he confirmed the monitoring of 15,000 fraudulent electoral cards during the 2012 National Congress elections, while the number of fraudulent electoral cards in the elections that were scheduled to take place at the end of last year amounted to 3,829 cards.
As surprising as these numbers were to some, it is a reality that is much less and much more than what was expected, as media reports were talking about mythical forgeries amounting to more than one million national numbers and great exaggerations that talked about entire families crossing the borders east, west and south to obtain national numbers and Libyan passports. (Malicious) media reports spoke of astronomical figures in the percentage of fraud that affected the voter registers.
The truth is that about 88 thousand national numbers do not match the civil status records, not a large number compared to the 8 million and 617 thousand citizens included in these records, the ratio here does not exceed 1%, add to it that not all of these 88 thousand numbers are forged numbers, but rather are Currently, the numbers do not match the civil status records.
What does that mean? It means that part of these numbers will be proven true, and another part will be proven falsified.
What is the evidence for this statement? The evidence for these words is what the Public Prosecutor himself said: the investigations included only the digital data in the electronic system and that it has not yet been presented to match it with the paper records located in the headquarters of the civil registry branches in the regions. Al-Siddiq Al-Sour confirmed that committees will be formed in the future from the Attorney General's Office and the Civil Status Authority to match the data contained in the digital system with the original data in the paper records.
We are still analyzing the words of the Public Prosecutor, who stated that the investigations that have continued since 2017 resulted in the discovery of fraud and manipulation that led to the benefit of about 209 million dinars, that is, the percentage of waste in public money - which is one of the most important fears of the Libyans - is not great, but some may argue that it is not important and that what was expected is much more than that, especially if we know that what is allocated for salaries from the budget approved by the House of Representatives for the year 2022 AD for the government Bashagha is more than 40 billion dinars, in addition to another 26 billion spent on various subsidies, which are undoubtedly money paid from the state budget without a return on it. And let's compare these frightening numbers to 209 million dinars stolen over five years. It turns out that the extent of the intimidation of the issue of forgery applies to the proverb (the funeral is large, and the dead is a mouse).
What was said in the previous paragraph also applies to what Mr. Al-Sour revealed regarding salaries; As 8690 employees receive salaries with incorrect national figures, this is a very simple number compared to two million and 14 thousand and 908 citizens who receive salaries from the state. This figure is what the Attorney General announced in the same press conference!
Second: What he did not say.
We need to know what the Attorney General did not say in his press conference. To read between the lines of his words and between the lines of the reports that moved public opinion and, therefore, the Attorney General for the investigation, and by carefully reading these lines and words, it becomes clear that the Attorney General wanted through the press conference to reassure public opinion. Despite the enormity of the principle, which is the existence of fraud and manipulation in the first place, the result is not as large as what was previously marketed. Neither the fraudulent numbers are large, nor the sums of money wasted that important, in addition to the reports that talked about millions of numbers proved to be malicious. Still, the mentioned reports were exchanged between the parties to the crisis, each accusing his opponent of rigging the elections at one time and with the demographic change of the Libyan people at another time. Here, the Public Prosecutor did not refer to the branches that discovered forgeries in their records, which regions of the country witnessed the largest number of forgeries of national numbers, and where are the families that crossed the country's borders to obtain passports? Was it crossed from which country's borders - east, west, or south -?
I think that these questions, in light of the political polarization that led to the polarization of my regions, in turn led to a state of war. It was worthy of an answer, and the attorney general's silence about it raises other questions about his impartiality and the impartiality of his office.
Another question prompted by the question about the impartiality of the Attorney General's office; Why did Mr. Al-Siddiq Al-Sour talk about forged electoral cards in the General National Congress elections in 2012 and others in the elections that were supposed to take place last year and did not unite about fraudulent ballots in the 2014 Parliament elections and the elections for the Constituent Assembly to draft the constitution in the same year.
Since the database that the HNEC relied on for the voter registration process has been the same since 2012, there is no doubt that the forged cards are still in the records until now or have been excluded, Since the Public Prosecutor did not talk about this. Since he admitted that investigations began in 2017. The parliamentary elections took place in 2014. It goes without saying that the possibility of fraud in the voter registers in the General National Congress elections was present in the parliamentary elections as well. Why did the Attorney General only mention the General National Congress and not mention the House of Representatives?
However, it is fair to say that the Attorney General has stated that it is not possible to be certain whether the owners of the forged cards participated in the electoral process or not because the vote counting was manual. His statement denies his accusation of antagonizing the General National Congress or complimenting the House of Representatives.
Finally, we arrive at the most important question from our point of view; Is the Libyan identity in danger?
By extrapolating what was stated in the Attorney General's press conference, We can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that if there are threats to the Libyan identity, the most important of them is not the falsification of national numbers. The presence of a questionable percentage representing only 1% of all national numbers is not a big deal, especially since these questionable numbers are not required to be falsified, and other committees will be formed later to compare them with paper records. As this comparison will prove the falsification of some of them, It will prove the authenticity of some others that were not included in the digital records, neglected, or the registration of her death was delayed, and so on.
The first dangers that threaten the Libyan identity are the state of political polarization that has fueled mutual accusations of forging millions of national numbers, dividing the country, and causing internal wars that started in 2014 and will not end with the 2019 war as well as the case of the cultural erosion of the Libyan heritage and local traditions to account for foreign ideas, beliefs, and ideologies whose followers claim divine holiness.
In conclusion, I hope that we first agree on a Libyan identity before we begin to defend it and identify and neutralize what threatens it.