Libya’s Health Minister Ramadan Boujenah has been arrested along with four senior officials in connection with a corruption case involving the illegal import of cancer treatment drugs from Iraq, according to a statement from the prosecutor general’s office on Wednesday.
The arrests were made after the officials, part of the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU), were found to have violated import regulations by procuring cancer medication from an Iraqi pharmaceutical facility without adhering to legal, financial, and technical standards required in public procurement.
The scandal has ignited public outrage across Libya, where government-funded cancer treatment options are limited and private healthcare remains financially inaccessible for many citizens. Public hospitals heavily rely on international pharmaceutical imports due to a lack of local production.
In response to the allegations, Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah’s office suspended Boujenah and the four officials earlier this month. Mohamad Al-Ghoj, formerly the ministry’s undersecretary, has been appointed acting health minister.
Boujenah, who assumed office in January 2022 after his predecessor was dismissed amid a separate corruption case, is now the fourth minister in the Dbeibah administration to face such allegations. The education minister was recently sentenced to a three-year prison term over a schoolbook shortage scandal, and in 2021, the culture minister was suspended over accusations of corruption and embezzlement.
Libya continues to grapple with political instability and division since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi, with rival administrations still vying for power in the east and west of the country.