The property mogul beams with pride as he shows off his vision for
developing Benghazi’s dilapidated city centre, which was sorely neglected during the four decades of
Colonel Muammer Gaddafi’s rule in Libya.
An office tower would go here. A five-star hotel topped by a luxurious residential apartment would go there. A gleaming shopping plaza would go in between.
The only thing missing is the
political will in Tripoli, the capital, to help him make it a reality, complains Adel el-Fadli, one of the richest men in eastern Libya.
“We need banks to help us finance this,” he says, holding up a design and sketches for the $55m project, which resembles the kind of neoclassical glass and steel complexes found in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula.
“The power structure is still the same as in the past,” Mr Fadli says. “No one has the authority to sign anything to give you the financing, or the permits or anything.”
Despite the economic stagnation of Col Gaddafi’s regime and its
chaotic aftermath, a few men with fat wallets and big dreams have managed to emerge from the wreckage and continue to devise schemes to get richer despite the many obstacles in their way.
Tycoons such as Tripoli-based Husni Bey, described as the richest man in Libya, and Mr Fadli, 49,