A Libyan oil terminal burns during the civil war. Security troubles continue to make life difficult for business

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, who estimates his worth at about $60m, suffered land and business confiscations under Gaddafi’s rule. One of Mr Fadli’s projects, an $8m resort, was “nationalised” by Col Gaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam, who had a history of grabbing successful businesses in the name of nationalisation.

Mr Fadli claims he is still being robbed of lucrative government contracts by remnants of the former regime that remain inside government institutions. “I felt corruption has increased much more since the revolution because there is no control,” he says.

Libya’s security troubles add to his woes. The September 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, in which the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others were killed, damaged the business climate and demoralised entrepreneurs. Mr Fadli says potential partners from Italy and Kuwait cancelled trips to Libya for planned talks on a proposed 20-acre resort development 20km west of Benghazi.

“We have felt so sorry and we are so afraid,” Mr Fadli says of what happened to Mr Stevens.

“Most Libyans like Americans,” he adds. As evidence Mr Fadli notes that he has been trying to bring the McDonald’s franchise to his country.

He says that diversification is crucial to survival in the uncertain Libyan climate. In addition to a construction arm, Mr Fadli’s Al-Shawati Group provides logistics for oil companies operating in the desert and imports medical equipment and fertility medicines.

But what the loquacious, curly-haired Mr Fadli would really like to do is launch some signature projects in his eastern home town, which lacks a single business hotel that would pass international standards.

During a conversation in the lobby of the grim, Stalinesque and state-owned Tibesti hotel, in the centre of Benghazi, Mr Fadli brims with disgust and eventually moves the meeting to his nearby office. “I have told hotel management here to give me the concession for the hotel,” he says. “I can fix it.”

Among his visions for the city is a plan to turn a 70-hectare parcel of land that was taken from his family years ago into a residential and commercial district. A sports club, which now owns the land, has agreed. But Mr Fadli says the paperwork is being blocked by bureaucrats in Tripoli, where all initiatives in Libya seem to die a quiet death.

Mr Fadli points out that Libya’s vast, oil-financed public sector, which accounts for the bulk of employment in the country, is unable to absorb all the graduates entering the market every year, making an expansion of private investment critical. Despite its oil wealth, Libya faces the same demographic time bomb as other north African countries.

He would like to see the country adopt the pro-business policies and entrepreneurial attitudes of the west – despite the backlash there against the deregulation seen as partly responsible for the banking crisis and other ills.

“They should let the private sector boom,” he says. “All the laws should be changed. We want to move. The banking sector should be working for us. I have the ideas. We need government to support us as private businesses to bring projects to reality.”

Under the previous regime, Mr Fadli and his family, together with other wealthy Libyans, were repeatedly victimised. When their projects bore fruit, they were often “nationalised” – effectively stolen by the Gaddafis.

The present investment environment, in which corruption persists and security has deteriorated, hardly seems attractive. Yet despite the challenges, Mr Fadli says he is not yet ready to give up on Libya.

“Dealing with high risk means very high profits,” he says, with a smile. “You see, like drug dealing – high risks, but very high profits.”