The Fort Worth Press - Tunisians fear more economic pain as IMF talks loom

USD -
AED 3.673042
AFN 70.483863
ALL 94.154318
AMD 400.326092
ANG 1.804345
AOA 912.000367
ARS 1030.201026
AUD 1.608752
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.70397
BAM 1.875797
BBD 2.021484
BDT 119.666235
BGN 1.875893
BHD 0.377116
BIF 2960.629166
BMD 1
BND 1.360284
BOB 6.917949
BRL 6.19575
BSD 1.001199
BTN 85.655781
BWP 13.925095
BYN 3.276459
BYR 19600
BZD 2.011125
CAD 1.44185
CDF 2870.000362
CHF 0.901912
CLF 0.035968
CLP 992.480698
CNY 7.298804
CNH 7.300404
COP 4398.407903
CRC 507.936508
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 105.754568
CZK 24.18804
DJF 178.286098
DKK 7.15404
DOP 60.892917
DZD 135.548842
EGP 50.85791
ERN 15
ETB 127.756678
EUR 0.958904
FJD 2.322404
FKP 0.791982
GBP 0.795197
GEL 2.810391
GGP 0.791982
GHS 14.717307
GIP 0.791982
GMD 72.000355
GNF 8653.910708
GTQ 7.718793
GYD 209.370354
HKD 7.761495
HNL 25.438066
HRK 7.172906
HTG 130.906824
HUF 394.110388
IDR 16185
ILS 3.688204
IMP 0.791982
INR 85.393504
IQD 1311.561886
IRR 42087.503816
ISK 138.620386
JEP 0.791982
JMD 155.843284
JOD 0.709104
JPY 157.85404
KES 129.65041
KGS 86.999404
KHR 4021.483719
KMF 466.125039
KPW 899.999441
KRW 1473.803789
KWD 0.30813
KYD 0.834316
KZT 524.068479
LAK 21884.620918
LBP 89676.305568
LKR 292.859541
LRD 182.218386
LSL 18.755383
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.923033
MAD 10.101472
MDL 18.461612
MGA 4696.686328
MKD 59.013092
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3397.99987
MOP 8.004412
MRU 39.937659
MUR 46.950378
MVR 15.403739
MWK 1736.057162
MXN 20.32835
MYR 4.471504
MZN 63.903729
NAD 18.755383
NGN 1548.770377
NIO 36.848415
NOK 11.355485
NPR 137.048866
NZD 1.776215
OMR 0.384913
PAB 1.001199
PEN 3.746511
PGK 4.006138
PHP 57.918038
PKR 278.705414
PLN 4.101568
PYG 7784.011893
QAR 3.64878
RON 4.773104
RSD 112.146933
RUB 105.500408
RWF 1381.95943
SAR 3.754472
SBD 8.383555
SCR 13.941399
SDG 601.503676
SEK 11.001945
SGD 1.358804
SHP 0.791982
SLE 22.803667
SLL 20969.503029
SOS 572.195847
SRD 35.08037
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.76037
SYP 2512.530243
SZL 18.748382
THB 34.079038
TJS 10.937995
TMT 3.51
TND 3.195032
TOP 2.342104
TRY 35.201235
TTD 6.803817
TWD 32.823504
TZS 2427.852108
UAH 42.01525
UGX 3672.37328
UYU 44.09917
UZS 12936.268163
VES 51.701114
VND 25455
VUV 118.722003
WST 2.762788
XAF 629.124826
XAG 0.034063
XAU 0.000382
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.767755
XOF 629.124826
XPF 114.381624
YER 250.375037
ZAR 18.68315
ZMK 9001.203587
ZMW 27.758116
ZWL 321.999592
  • RBGPF

    59.8400

    59.84

    +100%

  • RELX

    -0.2800

    45.58

    -0.61%

  • CMSD

    -0.1563

    23.32

    -0.67%

  • RIO

    -0.2400

    59.01

    -0.41%

  • NGG

    0.3900

    59.31

    +0.66%

  • SCS

    0.0700

    11.97

    +0.58%

  • GSK

    -0.0400

    34.08

    -0.12%

  • RYCEF

    0.0100

    7.27

    +0.14%

  • BTI

    -0.1200

    36.31

    -0.33%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    8.43

    +0.12%

  • AZN

    -0.2600

    66.26

    -0.39%

  • CMSC

    -0.2000

    23.46

    -0.85%

  • BCC

    -2.3000

    120.63

    -1.91%

  • BCE

    -0.2100

    22.66

    -0.93%

  • BP

    0.1100

    28.96

    +0.38%

  • JRI

    -0.0500

    12.15

    -0.41%

Tunisians fear more economic pain as IMF talks loom
Tunisians fear more economic pain as IMF talks loom

Tunisians fear more economic pain as IMF talks loom

Every day at the family grocery stall in a Tunis market, Bilel Jani sees the reality of a biting economic crisis, which for many has overshadowed Tunisia's latest political turmoil.

Text size:

"People here are poor," he said, handing a meagre bag of olives to a customer. "Most of our customers are living day-to-day. Monthly salaries these days don't even cover a week."

The small North African country, roiled by years of political turmoil that deepened with President Kais Saied's power grab last July, is also mired in a deep recession.

Surging prices and job losses have hurt families that were already struggling before the coronavirus pandemic.

This week, Tunisia started preliminary talks with the International Monetary Fund over a bailout package.

Such a deal would likely mean cuts to subsidies and public sector wages, which many fear would spell more suffering for the most vulnerable.

That could fuel the same kind of grievances that sparked a revolution a decade ago and brought down autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years in power.

The economic crisis since then has pushed tens of thousands of Tunisians to seek better lives overseas.

- Arab Spring's birthplace -

At the Halfaouine market in a winding street near central Tunis, Jani's customers are already feeling the pain.

"People used to buy by the kilogram," he said. "Now they just buy the absolute necessities."

His customer Delila Dridi said life was a struggle on her salary from the education ministry.

"I earn 1,000 dinars ($348, 305 euros) a month and I used to have 100 or 60 dinars left over at the end," she said. "Now I have to borrow to get to the end of the month."

Asked when things had started to deteriorate, she said "since Zine left".

Ben Ali had ruled with an iron fist. But in late 2010, in the neglected town of Sidi Bouzid, vegetable salesman Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in desperate protest against police harassment.

That sparked a revolt which forced Ben Ali into exile and sparked the Arab Spring uprisings around the region.

But rather than addressing corruption and structural economic problems, the dysfunctional democracy that followed was torn by an ideological showdown between Islamists and secularists.

Successive governments staged hiring sprees to tamp down social unrest, inadvertently tripling the wage cost of Tunisia's public sector, one of the world's most bloated.

- Battling inflation -

Little was done to help poorer regions in a country with vast wealth disparities, said Romdhane Ben Amor of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights.

Then, in 2020, the pandemic hit and Tunisia's economy shrank by more than nine percent while public debt spiralled.

The International Crisis Group think-tank warned last month that the debt-burdened treasury "can barely cover the salaries owed to public-sector workers or honour commitments to repay external loans".

With both the government and private banks reluctant to lend to the private sector, about 80,000 small and medium-sized companies have either declared bankruptcy or left the country since early 2020.

"The economy is in a deep recession, debt is at unprecedented levels and unemployment is at 18 percent," and much higher among the youth, said economist Ezzedine Saidane.

Inflation has remained stubbornly high, in December hitting 6.6 percent on an annualised basis.

Those rising costs have spelled misery for people relying on stagnant salaries, pushing many of Tunisia's once large middle class towards poverty.

"I've stopped buying lots of things because my salary doesn't cover it," said Dridi.

- 'Waiting for a spark' -

All this poses a looming challenge for President Saied, who last year sacked the government and seized wide-ranging powers, vowing to "cleanse" state institutions and rewrite the constitution.

Ben Amor worries that Saied, an austere constitutional law professor, "doesn't have an economic or social programme".

"He doesn't meet any economic experts. He meets legal experts. But our problem is not legal," he said. "There's a crisis, but it's an economic and social one."

Ben Amor said that going to the IMF, with the austerity that would likely follow, should be Tunisia's last option after domestic solutions were exhausted.

For example, the country's large informal sector and companies that benefited from the pandemic all represent untapped sources of tax revenue, he said.

"The IMF looks at citizens and their needs as numbers: the public wage bill, interest rates, debt rates etc," he said. "It doesn't look at them as people who have needs -- to eat, have health care, travel."

Ben Amor believes that the economic crisis could easily spark major social unrest.

"This seems like the calm before the storm," he said. "Society is waiting for a spark. Just as happened in 2010."

W.Matthews--TFWP