Tunisia-Presidential: According to Court of Auditors, Karoui has benefited from foreign funding

The first president of the Court of Accounts and President of the Financial Disciplinary Court, Néjib Ktari, lately submitted copies of the report on the results of the control of the financing of electoral campaigns for the early presidential election and the legislative elections of 2019, to the President of the Republic, to the head of government as well as to the House speaker.

This report showed that the former nominee for the early presidential election and president of Qalb Tounes party, Nabil Karoui, did indeed enter into a partnership with a foreign lobbying company for a calculated sum of 2.85 million dinars. The purpose is to lobby and win the sympathy of public opinion on the eve of the presidential election. It also sought, through this same partnership concluded with the company whose owner was none other than the Israeli lobbyist Ari Ben-Menash, to obtain the support of international structures and organizations and to allow Nabil Karoui to meet with the president of USA as well as senior US officials the day before the first round of voting.

The same report revealed that an amount estimated at 427.5 thousand dinars or 150 thousand dollars was transferred from the personal bank account of Nabil Karoui’s wife, opened with HSBC Bank Middle East in Dubai, for the benefit of said company. on September 23, 2019. The report noted that the bank account in question was not declared to the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT).