JENDOUBA (TAP) - Interim Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa announced, Monday in Jendouba, the establishment of a monitoring team composed of representatives of several ministries in charge of development to take necessary decisions to resolve outstanding problems of all public projects.
The monitoring team will be responsible for taking quick and effective decisions.
In a speech during a meeting of a special session of the regional development council in Jendouba, he said his visit in the region, in company of government members, allowed him to realise a set of paradoxes, particularly that the governorate, which has a huge hydraulic, forestry and natural potential, is still rated among the poorest regions, pointing also to the under-utilisation of resources available.
In this regard, Mehdi Jomaa expressed his astonishment at the delay suffered by 475 public projects for reasons described as "simple," blaming the regional and local authorities and the civil society for not taking steps to intervene and find solutions to obstacles without infringing the rights of citizens and the national community.
Regarding the project of the bridge over the Oued Medjerda which is pending for three years due to land problems, the prime minister said "the duty of the state is to guarantee citizens' rights but also to meet the demands of the national community for the implementation of projects and provision of needed services," noting that "we must insist on the commitment of the state to implement them."
He stressed, in this regard, that work is the fundamental criterion to save the country from the crisis, saying the government does not need officials who are unable to take immediate decisions.
Speakers at the meeting discussed a set of problems related to development, education, economy and security, saying that one of the major causes of the slow rate of development rests in the inability in the region to make needed decisions concerning urgent and pending issues.
They proposed re-opening some factories shut down due to simple administrative reasons or because they were not connected to the electricity network, in order to boost development in the region.
Before the meeting which was attended by government members, local deputies, the governor of Jendouba and representatives of political parties and organisations, the prime minister visited projects in progress or pending.
During his visit to the border crossing of Melloula, Mehdi Jomaa emphasised the need to complete works in progress before the start of the tourist season to all the reception of about one million Algerian visitors.
He also inspected the two-lane bridge in Oued Medjerda, on National Road No. 17 in Jendouba which will ease congestion in the city and visited the sugar factory and the Japanese automotive cables plant in the industrial area of "Ertyah 1."
On the other hand, the prime minister visited the farm complex of Badrouna in the delegation of Boussalem where he expressed his astonishment at the heavy debt accumulated by this complex which reached 2 billion dinars, though it manages huge agricultural areas exceeding 1,400 hectares.
During this visit, the prime minister was accompanied by the Ministers of the Interior, Public Works, Territory Planning and Sustainable Development and Tourism and the Minister in charge of Co-ordination and Monitoring of Economic Affairs, the Secretary of State for Development and International Co-operation and the Secretary of State for Regional and Local Affairs.
© Tunis-Afrique Presse 2014