The Government Lost $60 Bln on “Dead Companies”, Experts

Economic experts said Algeria has been losing $60 billion since 1990 due to the sustainable support attributed to keep alive already bankrupt companies.

Expert Abderahmane Toumi told Echorouk reporter that the insistence of the government to clean debts of state run companies is “illegal”, given that the monetary law of 1990 stipulates that the public fund is assigned to finance only lucrative operations. Mr Toumi indicated that the economic trend that Algeria has chosen after the Constitution of 1989 prohibits attributing financial support to unprofitable companies.

He added that the government is urged to account officials responsible for making of state owned companies unprofitable, and causing thus losses of $ 60 billion to the public treasury, rather than continuing supporting them, under the pretext of preserving jobs of 180 thousand employees. 

To recall, the Minister of Industry, SMEs and Investment Promotion, Mohamed Benmeradi, had previously revealed that the government reserved 1100 billion DZD (about $16 billion) to the restructuration and the boost of the public industry sector.  

Meanwhile, expert Abderrahmane Mebtoul told Echorouk reporter that Algeria has been losing since the early eighties a budget enough to create 1 million permanent jobs with permanent wealth, and which could have been twice the number of the current workers, who contribute by less than 5 percent in the GDP since 2000.