RND Party: “Ouyahia Is Against Closure Of Public Companies And Workers’ Layoffs”

The National Democratic Rally (RND Party) has been swift to refute rumors that the government is intent on shutting down public companies and laying off their workers, driven by the party’s secretary-general, and current Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, who is accused by his opponents of having been, in the recent past, responsible for closing thousands of public companies and laying off hundreds of workers, under the pressure of the International Monetary Fund.

The ongoing debate again revolves around the “intention” of the Ouyahia government to close public institutions and lay off workers in a scenario similar to that of the 1990s. 

Such rumors were widely circulated. They were derived from the pessimistic speeches of Premier Ahmed Ouyahia, delivered before the Parliament, during his diagnosis of the woeful financial situation now besetting the country.

The National Democratic Rally (RND), fearing the repercussions of these rumors on the results of the upcoming local elections and the possible loss of seats in the elected councils, is keen to raise the quota of its representation in the National People’s Assembly to 100 seats, and firmly believes that hostile parties are waging a campaign against it to undermine it in anticipation of the upcoming polls.

In a statement published on its official Facebook page, the RND party expressed surprise at what it called “some attempts to promote a tendentious allegation of the government’s pseudo intention to close public companies and to dismiss their workers.”

According to the authors of the statement, “those who are behind these rumors want to rely on a reverse reading of the Prime Minister’s instruction providing for the provision of greater independence in the management of public companies in order to shore up their efficiency and competitiveness,” noting that “the government, which was headed by Ahmed Ouyahia in 2011, extended 1,000 billion dinars as loans for these companies for their smooth rehabilitation and preservation of their sustainability.

It also allocated the latter public transactions stemming from the format of simple compromise without resorting to tenders with an overall financial  package totaling one billion dinars.

The same source also pointed out: “We remind those behind these rumors that the government headed by Ahmed Ouyahia has decided to give priority to national and local companies to benefit from public transactions, and decided to protect and promote the Algerian-made product in the national market, in a bid to allow maintaining the sustainability of jobs and to further enhancing the efficiency of national Companies”.