Benkhalfa: “Sonatrach, Sonelgaz aren’t for sale … Oil revenues set to reach 600 billion dinars”

The atmosphere was calm on Monday morning at the Senate or council of the nation, which received Finance Minister Abderrahmane Benkhelfa for the presentation of the 2016 draft Finance Act.

The Minister, it must be stressed, was in front of an audience which was completely in his favour, unlike its latest passage at the people’s national assembly that was glazed by verbal and physical altercations among the deputies and by a strong resistance to the governmental project, even on the part of manifold FLN MP’s.

At the opening of the session, the Senate’s speaker Abdelkader Bensalah, returning to the helm after several months of absence, due to illness keyed up the tone and drew the red lines for the senators in order to preclude the breaking out of any turmoil similarly to what happened recently at the national people’s assembly.

In short, Mr Bensalah sternly urged the senators to confine themselves to the discussion of the provisions of the draft finance act presented by the government by avoiding any verbal excesses.

Mr Benkhelfa took advantage of the prevailing peaceful atmosphere to hark back in detail to the measures taken under this bill. “The state is heading towards a pragmatic management of its resources to better cope with falling oil revenues,” he noted.

According to the minister, the gross budget deficit is structural and not cyclical, although he recognized that this untoward situation threatens seriously the financial balances of the country.

The minister said the government had to act and take bold measures without abandoning the most disadvantaged social strata of the population.

It is within this new economic policy line of the country that “the government has decided in favor of a reasonable increase in the price of electricity and fuel, Benkhalfa asserted.

In his explanation of those articles of the 2016 draft finance law called into question by the government, as is the case of Article 66, which opens the capital of public companies to the private sector: “I would like to reassure the Algerians on the fact that this openness wouldn’t concern under any circumstances major strategic companies like Sonatrach or Sonalgaz “, he underlined.

The opening of the capital will benefit exclusively “national resident companies, after a favorable green-light to be granted by the National Investment Council (CNI).” The 51/49 rule is maintained “and will even be extended to other sectors of activity,” he said.

As for the country’s external debt, the question does not seem to be the order of the day, although it is not ruled out altogether, “the government relies on the internal financing of projects. We want to avoid the use of excessive external debt,” Benkhalfa told the senators.

According to the Minister, ordinary taxation covers 60% of the management expenses and 110% of the costs of payroll. The draft Finance law is slated to be adopted on Tuesday.