Algeria: Government poised to enforce emergency measures to halt illicit money flows overseas

The Algerian Government has decided to re-open the burning file of the enormous capital flight abroad and its deleterious effects, as Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal summoned earlier this week, a number of cabinet Ministers led by Ministers of finance and trade, respectively Mohamed Djellab and Amara Benyounes, for a Joint inter-Ministerial Council meeting, to address the vexed issue of illicit financial flows overseas which has dealt a serious blow to the national economy over the past years.

Mr Sellal announced “a state of emergency” on this very delicate file, warning the ministers concerned against further inaction in dealing with this sensitive issue that has consumed more than 5 Ministerial Councils in addition to the revision of relevant legal texts without the Government being able to finally thrash out a remedial solution to stop the unabated drain of the outlawed capital flight abroad.

To this effect and according to latest official figures relayed to “Echorouk”, these illicit money flows smuggled out of Algeria have exceeded $ 18 billion dollars over the past 10 years, an average of more than $ 1.5 billion dollars lost by the Public Treasury per year.

Previous figures showed that in 2008 and 2009, the volume of funds smuggled out of Algeria reached 4 billion dollars, the same amount was recorded the following year, and the overall amount of smuggled funds fell in 2011 and stood at 187 million dollars.

Illicit hard currency flows abroad witnessed a hike in 2012 to reach $ 2.6 billion and in 2013; they later bounced back and were set at around 3 billion dollars, while no information was available about last year’s figures.