TUNIS: Tunisia’s government will need about 7bn dinars ($4.4bn) of loans and aid next year as it proceeds with a costly plan to compensate former political prisoners freed by the 2011 revolution, Finance Minister Slim Besbes said.
His comments, made in an interview at the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit, illustrated the financial pressures Tunisia faces as its post-revolution government, led by the moderate Islamist Ennahda movement, rebuilds the economy.
Industrial production and tourism earnings were hit hard by last year’s political turmoil, driving the state budget deep into deficit. At the same time, the government cannot ignore demands for support from the poor, thousands of former political prisoners and other groups that suffered under ousted president Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali.
“The government is also committed to restoring many of the former prisoners to work, and this will cost the state a lot of money,” said Besbes, a former academic who previously served as deputy finance minister.
“The state will carry out its responsibility to provide immediate compensation to former prisoners who are in difficult situations because of their ideology,” he added, without specifying the amount of aid required.
Besbes’ predecessor as finance minister, Hussein Dimassi, resigned in July, complaining about the cost of the compensation scheme and accusing the government of being more concerned about winning votes than about the health of public finances. “The draft law for the compensation of beneficiaries of the general amnesty is the most serious of all; it was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” a statement from Dimassi’s office read when he resigned.
“It will result in a very heavy expenditure for the state’s budget, considering the high number of beneficiaries and the amount of the compensation.” Tunisian newspapers said the plan might cost as much as 750m dinars. Besbes said that next year’s state budget could not escape pressures from the compensation program, as well as projects to develop less affluent regions of the country and spending on social welfare for the poor.
Reuters
