30 August 2016
By the end of 2016, the budget deficit will fall in the range of 2,500 and 2,900 million Tunisian dinars (MTD), 6.5% of the State's budget, said Faycal Derbel, Honorary President of the Tunisian Order of Accountants (French: OECT).

Public finances are facing a major crisis, he said to TAP on the sidelines of the Parliamentary Seminar, held in Hammamet, on "financial balances and requirements of the stage."

"The current situation is very critical especially as the deficit had reached up to June 30, 2016, MTD 2,200, a record that Tunisia has not reached in the last decade," he pointed out.

The expert added that "to keep the deficit under control urgent solutions are required," for instance to develop a supplementary finance law, speed up the disposal process of confiscated properties, privatise some public institutions in difficulty while keeping vital companies as STEG and SONEDE and adopt a new exceptional national tax or an exceptional contribution of large companies or high incomes.

According to Derbel, it is today difficult to have recourse once more to indebtedness to contain this deficit, especially as Tunisia's public debt rate reached 60%.

He even expressed astonishment that tax revenues had reached 0.03% by the end of June 2016, and taxation on the value added tax had dropped.

For his part, Taoufik Rajhi, President of the Council of Economic Analysis, estimated that the main goal that must be reached today is to manage the budget deficit around 3.9% in conformity with the prevision of the 2016 finances law and to hold the level of debt at 54.8%.

© Tunis-Afrique Presse 2016