Algerian businessmen to disburse only 10% of financial amount collected during “Telethon”

The nagging question of the declared pledge by businessmen belonging to the heads of enterprises forum (FCE) who vowed to massively contribute financially to the national loan bond operation launched by the government last April remains a matter of controversy.

The “Telethon” operation held last April during a special Ramadan evening at the Aurassi hotel conference hall in Algiers by the FCE Forum and aimed at raising approximately $ 1.5 billion dollars meant to be injected into the Public Treasury in order to cope with the current financial constraints faced by the country, has so far led to the collection of about 300 billion dinars.

In this connection, “Echorouk” has learnt from sources close to the FCE that those businessmen who pledged during that telethon-like evening massive subscriptions for the special loan bond operation, will finally disburse only 10 per cent of the overall amount to be collected or the equivalent of 300 billion centimes, leaving surprisingly the financial brunt weighing upon others notably upon public companies and banks.

This came out during an assessment meeting held by the FCE business leaders on Wednesday, according to the same sources.

 In this sense, several national public and private companies in various sectors have submitted at least promises to subscribe one (1) billion dinars, affirmed their representatives to newsmen on the sidelines of the Telethon event.

This is, in particular, Cosider, Mobilis, Naftal and Alliance Assurance, while mobile phone-operator Djezzy made a commitment of two (2) billion dinars.

Launched on April 17th 2016, the National Loan bond operation called (ENCE), which is to continue until next October 17th has raised, up to now, almost 300 billion dinars. 

This amount was disclosed by a financial source who revealed that “almost the majority of these subscriptions was recorded in the banking agencies and insurance companies, while provincial treasuries collected a fraction of around 1%”.

It should be recalled that at the beginning of the operation, only one type of bond was issued with a value of 50,000 Dinars each. The bonds contain two interest rate fixed according to the repayment period: 3 years bonds with an interest rate of 5%, and 5 years with an interest rate of 5.75%.

Two other bond categories were introduced: those of 10,000 DA for particular individuals and those of one (1) million DA for large investors.

The subscription which is open to individuals, businesses, financial institutions such as the various public bodies (pension funds, social security …) is done through the desks of commercial banks and the Bank of Algeria, in addition to tax offices, insurance companies and public treasuries.