2023 Finance bill : Convening the press just to insult the intelligence of citizens

When the Minister of Economy and Planning, Samir Saïed, convened the press this Monday, December 26, everyone assumed that he was going to carry out an explanation of text on things not adequately explained by the 2023 finance law, or even lift a corner of the veil on what he was going to do to revive the economy of the country – his famous recovery plan. Than nenni. Samir Saïed just came to state what everyone already knew: 2023 will be hell and we are all going to raise a glass…

To display this year in Dantesque the Minister has dropped the inflation rate of 10.5% that Tunisian citizens will have to squeeze themselves. Well, everyone will have understood that this figure is most certainly lowered, it is the law of the genre. In short, you have to expect much worse. The minister added that Tunisia is able to contain this inflation rate, unlike other nations, but he did not go so far as to say how. So on this file as on many others, we will be hungry …

Then, in a momentum he passed for an exercise of truth, the minister stated that the country is forced to fall back on the IMF. As if there too we knew it. But what is more worrisome is the continuation of his speech before the press: “The only plan B that we have is more taxes and the decrease of the budget allocated to public investment and social measures”, he declare…

Except for that plan, B is already there Mr Minister. The growth in taxes was well felt in this 2023 finance law, assumed publicly by his colleague Sihem Nemsia. But what we do not understand and which defies any financial orthodoxy is that we raise taxes (Tunisia is already one of the most taxed countries in Africa) to fund the lifestyle of the state, in other words operating expenses – basically public service wages. It is a total contempt for all economic logic!

A 2023 budget rises to some 70 billion dinars, almost 43% of Tunisian GDP (barely 13 billion in 2010) while at the same time public investment is lowered to a congruent portion, it is on this oddity that ‘We were waiting for the Minister of the Economy. A budget that everyone and everyone uses – even the presidency of the Republic – except the policy that is operated to relaunch the country, that is what we anticipated Samir Saïed. He may have passed between the drops of the press but he will not be able to save a frank explanation with the landlords of Tunisia …

The country will end the year with a deficit of nearly 10 billion dinars, according to the complementary finance law of 2022, to which is added an external funding need for 16 billion dinars for 2023. Hello, explanations before foreign partners. The gaping hole in the 2023 finance law we see from here, already and its corollary with the complementary finance law.

We will stop there so as not to knock more on citizens on the eve of this “Annus Horribilis”. May the situation be what it is, through the fault of those who have piloted the nation in this black decade and that it takes time and sacrifices to make fixes, we can acknowledge it. But the rulers take us on tracks that will only exacerbate our problems and try in addition to passing the bladder for lanterns, there we insult our intelligence. Watch out for the return of the tax stick …