On the afternoon of Thursday 6th December 2007 my car's petrol indicator lit up signifying that I was running on empty. Knowing that I was planning to take the family for a Friday trip, I headed off to the nearest petrol station. But it soon became very clear that something very unusual was going on that Thursday, as I was forced from one petrol station to another seeking petrol. At the end I gave up and went home.

Yes, the land of 1.8 million barrels of oil per day and soon to be 3 million barrels of oil per day and member of OPEC…. RAN OUT OF PETROL! OPEC, by the way, stands for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. That is, countries with so much surplus and extra oil production over and above their needs that they belong to an organization that represents the world's top oil exporters.

On Libyan Jamahiriya Broadcasting Corporation's Friday's (7/12/07) morning magazine programme Sabah Al Khayer Awal Jamahiriya (Good Morning First Jamahiriya) Mr Yousef Al Sharif, head of Brega Marketing, blamed the petrol shortages in Tripoli on the rumour circulating that there was going to be petrol shortages or sudden petrol price increases causing panic buying, and that rough seas meant that about 8 oil tankers were not able to dock at Zawya Refinary and were now transferred to Misrata Port.

Conspiracy theories were out in force. But do you blame the Libyan public with so little credible PR, media, or information savvy by the authorities. If the reason for the crisis was indeed panic buying caused by rumours of petrol shortages or sudden petrol price increases, then it is the fault of Brega Marketing. It would be a communications and information failure by Brega Marketing. If it were the rumour of sudden price increases again this would be the fault of Brega. They have in the past sneaked in incremental petrol price increases with little public debate or forewarning.

As for the often-used and abused excuse of the long-term effect of the sanctions – the sanctions have been lifted for years. True it takes years to build refinery capacity, but the Libyan public did not all suddenly buy cars or start driving cars overnight. Somebody at Brega planning department went to sleep and forgot to forecast and project population growth, future petrol consumption, petrol station needs, pumps, tank capacity at petrol stations and lorry transport to petrol stations.

Why not over-refine or over-import refined petrol and either store or export the surplus to neighbouring countries? The USA has a Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), storing emergency supplies of crude oil with a current capacity of 727 million barrels giving up to 118 days without imports – this capacity is to be increased to 1 bn barrels in the coming years. I am sure (I hope!) that the security forces may have strategic reserves, but what about the civilian population? Has Brega Marketing never considered having a strategic reserve of petrol? What happens if we were to be at war all of a sudden? The whole country would come to a complete standstill.

Libya has to import 50-60% of its refined fuel needs, which needs to be addressed. Brega Marketing needs to review its lack of central storage capacity, its lack of storage capacity at petrol stations, the slow speed of petrol station pumps, the slow speed of petrol delivery system to petrol stations, and the slow licencing of new petrol stations as Tripoli outer limits outpace planners.

I know that this has not happened for years, but a petrol shortage – in peace time in an OPEC state - is an indicator of the quality of administration and management. We talk – we dream, we fantasize – about Libya gaining and establishing 'competitive advantages' in certain market sectors in order to create alternative sources of income to the presently dominant 90% plus oil exports.

We talk about weaning the Libyan public off state subsidies, off the dependence mentality, off the hidden and indirect social security in the form of surplus labour in all government departments and companies. But how are we going to do all this with such poor human resources, such poor administrators, such poor project managers, and frankly such poor Umana of General People’s Committees (ministers)? There is no administrative responsibility, no individual responsibility, no one was asked to resign, no one was sacked, no meritocracy, no link between performance and job tenure.

Having a petrol shortage in Libya is like having a sand shortage in the middle of the Great Libyan desert! If we cannot organize ourselves in areas where we have a natural god-given advantage, what chance do we have of creating competitive advantages in new sectors such as the tourism sector, the ITC sector, the re-export sector, the petrochemical industry sector or the renewable energy sector.

Tripoli's huge increase in car numbers is partly due to the lack of mass transit systems. Tripoli has no over-ground railways system, although it has been talked about for decades and budgets had been assigned. What happened to those budgets? It has no trams, or underground system, yet alone a bus system. How many capital cities in the world can you name that don’t have a public bus system?

It is symptomatic of Libya's general nationwide administrative, managerial and planning malaise across - I am sorry to say - all sectors. It is frankly embarrassing and depressing. The Al Jazeera broadcast reporting petrol shortages in Tripoli must have made viewers abroad laugh.

The final conclusion is that Libya may be suffers from the lack of long-term planning. Libya needs joined-up authorities with long term plans that cannot be changed by every new Amin of a GPC. It needs planning across all sectors as Libya's population and urbanization grows. It needs planning today for tomorrow.

Sami Zaptia - www.knowlibya.net