MPs call for open public debate on Algeria’s economic situation

The deputies of the National People’s Assembly have called for the holding of an open public debate about the current economic situation of the country, in the wake of the statement made by President Abdellaziz Bouteflika during the last Council of Ministers’ meeting as he enjoined the government to apprise in earnest the Algerian people about the ins and outs of this difficult juncture.

MPs belonging to several parties represented in the Assembly have stated collecting signatures to achieve the required quorum to pave the way for such an open debate.

Sources told “Echorouk” that 63 signatures have up to now been collected to this effect.

An MP belonging to the “Front of Justice and Development”, Lakhdar Benkhalaf recalled in this connection that several deputies, while taking the floor at the people’s Assembly, had explicitly called in the recent past for a freewheeling parliamentary debate about the country’s economic woes but their requests have remained a dead letter owing to certain logjams.

He said that the deputies’ relevant requests were voiced in the wake of the sharp drop in the oil prices on the world market which seriously dented the country’s external revenues mainly accrued from hydrocarbons’ exports.