Reuters report: Libyan wealth fund to hire auditors in push to unfreeze assets

Reuters , Thursday 22 Nov 2018

Libya’s sovereign wealth fund will appoint auditors within weeks and conclude a wide-ranging examination of its assets by 2019 as part of its efforts to get billions of dollars of assets unfrozen, the fund’s head told Reuters.

Ali Mahmoud Hassan Mohamed, the chairman and chief executive of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), said financial auditing and consulting company PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was one of the firms the fund was considering.

About 70 percent of the LIA’s $67 billion worth of assets have been frozen under United Nations sanctions since the toppling of veteran ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 pushed the country into turmoil.

UN diplomats say they want to see a stable government in Libya before relaxing the sanctions.

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