NTC: We are not the government’s opponent

The spokesman of the Council, Mohammed al-Harizi Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) has said it was never an opponent Abdel Rahim el-Keeb's government. El-Keeb said in a statement on Wednesday: “We find ourselves tied by the Council’s members who continue to wage their attack on the government, and threaten to withdraw confidence from it.”
The spokesman of the Council, Mohammed al-Harizi, said in a statement on Monday: “The Council is working since its establishment on helping the government succeed in its programmes without any interference,” stressing that “the council showed willingness to issue any laws or decisions that would overcome obstacles and accelerate the pace of progress.”
Al-Harizi pointed out: “Despite the delay of the government in submitting the budget, which was delivered to the council two and half months late, the council approved it in only 10 days. It was the largest budget in Libya’s history, despite the concerns of many,” adding that “the government had earlier requested an emergency budget of 3 billion dinars, and it was approved on the same day as it was requested.”
 The NTC spokesman continued: “The government returned after two months and said it could not receive the budget due to the prepayment auditing law, so the Council waived it, on the same day, from auditing into a post-payment auditing.” He added that a large number of concerns,such as the weak performance of the government, the repeated complaints raised by some ministers about the inability of the prime minister to jointly work with his ministers, and lack of courage in decision making, were "the reasons why we were delayed in reaching and finalising the most important issues required by the government,” such as establishing security,handling revolutionaries and caring for the injured.
Harizi said: “Despite all these concerns, the Council tried to give the government many chances to address these issues,” noting that “the last of the these attempts was the Tuesday meeting with the prime minister and the ministers of finance, interior, health, planning and a representative from the ministry of defence”. He also explained that “the government during this meeting requested the council to support it in taking some crucial decisions” such as the injured revolutionaries and regulating the possession of arms.
The council spokesman added: “The Council agreed during the meeting to stand by the government in all the decisions it wants to take in these regards, and undertook its full support to succeed and accomplish these missions. We are surprised today with the statement of the prime minister in which he blamed the Council for the faltering performance of the government, despite all of the above-mentioned examples, which are just a few among many other things has been done to succeed the work of the government.”
Harizi concluded by stating that the coming elections will be held on time and the council would make sure of it.