The announcement of the imminent inauguration of the Tunis Rapid Rail Network and its postponement to a later date, which have been repeated on several occasions for quite a long time now, is a very well-known example among dozens of other less public ones, of one of the evils at the origin of the economic and social decline of Tunisia, the delays and stoppages in the realization of the planned projects. The last announcement of the commissioning of the RFR dates back to December 15, but users are still waiting in vain.
We also note the deep-water port project of Enfidha and the increase in the share of electricity generated by renewable energies (a Tunisian solar plan was developed before the 2011 revolution). We are still at a rate of around 5%, whereas Morocco has already achieved a rate of 37%.
The city of Sfax has recently come close to generalized insurrection, following the delay of more than three years in the construction of the new household waste dump.
This has been the case, for 40 years, with the revision of the system of subsidies for basic consumer products (the bread revolt took place in 1984), or even with the depollution of the Gulf of Gabes, while 12 years after the January 2011 revolution, the renewal of the national development model, one of the slogans of this great popular movement, is still languishing in the drawers.
However, Tunisians want concrete achievements to be convinced and adhere to it, commentators have said.
Also, without prejudging the future, these same analysts declared that they did not expect a real boost in this direction from the decree-law of October 19, 2022, relating to the improvement of the efficiency of project implementation. public and private, in the face of the poisoned national context that Tunisia is currently experiencing, and made more vulnerable by the very poor participation rate in the legislative elections of December 17, 2022.
For many of them, Tunisia has exhausted all the assets acquired thanks to the 2011 revolution, both internally and externally.
Discontent has spread. Everyone complains, and for good reason.
Bottleneck
Thus, when the Trade Union Center of Workers and the Tunisian General Labor Union multiplied, Wednesday, December 21, threats, rejecting what it described as a “policy of autocracy in the development of the finance law for 2023”, the employers’ organization, the Tunisian Union of Industry, Commerce and Handicrafts (UTICA) has started, from this Thursday, December 22, via its regional section of Ariana, a movement general rejection of this same finance law for 2023.
The government has thus succeeded in dissatisfying the workers and the employers, the two largest driving forces in the country.
The workers are furious because the text is considered anti-social while business leaders say they are victims of unbearable over-taxation.
For their part, farmers have not ceased to issue cries of alarm in vain, seeing the various agricultural sectors sink day by day, while the great mass of citizens, under pressure from all sides, is on the edge of the explosion, even revolt to believe certain political actors.
This is because the continuous erosion of purchasing power has been compounded in recent months by intolerable shortages in basic consumer products, sugar, coffee, milk, eggs, white meats, semolina, flour, and medicines, parallel to the growing deterioration of public services, especially in health, education, and transport, which have a great and direct impact on the population.
At the international level, it is recorded, periodically, an erosion of the position of Tunisia, in spite of some material and moral support that the brotherly and friendly countries continue to bring to him. This is evidenced by the regression of its scores in the world rankings for many economic and social indicators, compared to its scores before 2011. At the same time, the scores attributed to it by the international rating agencies also fell in an alarming way.
It remains to know how to get out of this tunnel or as the late President Béji Caid Essebsit would have said, of this bottleneck. Because is it really one?
In recent days, after the December 17 ballot, all voices at home and abroad are unanimous in seeing the outcome in the development of a common national project through a dialogue widened to all political and social forces and to all components of civil society, without exclusion or bias.
