Government's Return To External Debt Is Not A Taboo, Mahdjoub Bada Says

Government’s return to the external debt is not a “Taboo” when it is directed to investment projects, Head of the Finance Committee and Budget at the National People’s Council, Mahdjoub Bada, said.

“This procedure is used by several countries when facing a financial distress. Talking about it for Algeria is premature now, because the state is still able of preserve the major political, social and economic balances of the country”.

Finance Committee at the Lower Chamber of Parliament, unusually decided to organize a press conference, before setting off in the examination of the draft finance bill for the year 2017, that was attended by the President of the People’s National Assembly, Finance Minister, Hadji Baba Ammi, and the heads of parliamentary blocs, in a move “to prepare” the public opinion for the contents of the Finance Act and avoid a repeated scenario like that of 2016, when the legislative text faced vitriolic attacks and was exploited by the opposition as a “paper” to criticize the government.

President of the Commission defended, in a statement to media, the procedures that are brought by the Finance Act, saying: “There is no scare in the project, and you have seen what happened in the 2016 Finance Act, when many people talked about the starving of people and other statements, but in the end we found that speech was for consumption, and was mere popular rather than real”.

“State’s reliance on the US $ 50 per barrel of oil, as a reference price for the next three years is not a risk, as some believe, because the reference price now is real and not a default, adding: “Some parties want to intimidate citizens and talk about the increases and new taxes, but this is not true because increases that came out by the finance bill for the coming year are simple and consistent with the difficult economic situation, and not only on Algeria even on other countries like Russia, the Gulf countries and Nigeria”.

“Law brought in stimulus measures for the development of the national economy, along the lines with encouragement of the handling companies, in addition to the 80% of the revenues that will go to the public treasury and 20% to the local coffers”.

“Freezing of projects which were launched will be completed, but there are no new projects in 2017, as the government will not abandon its policy of support. We are waiting from the Digital Economy Ministry that was created to prepare lists together with the Ministry of Solidarity for the needy and poor families”.