The tragic fate of the “Titanic” lurks in Algeria in 2015

The so-called “We Build” initiative likened the Algerian Government to the hapless captain of the famous “Titanic” ship that formerly sank in the Pacific Ocean, after ignoring seven messages warning of an iceberg in the offing, and the turning of a blind eye by the power establishment of signals received from all sides about the fragility of the national economy with the brandishing of “false” exchange reserve earnings set within the limits of 200 billion dollars.

The initiative undertaken in view of the state of the national economy by the Algerian government has begun twisting because of the current acute oil crisis, and the latter continued however to pursue a policy of public spending funded by fluctuating oil and gas revenues.

This suicidal spending policy is reminiscent of the same fate met by the “Titanic” vessel that was driven at high speed by the pilot, falsely believing that it was unsinkable, but eventually he failed to avoid the lethal iceberg ahead.

The government’s reckless and  frenzied spending policy with no braking is ostensibly of the same type of the fatal errors which caused the horrendous sinking of the super “Titanic” vessel.

On the other hand, with an excessive braking without changing the path, the power establishment is bent on committing the same errors which spawned the crisis of 1985, and which drastically curbed public investment, while maintaining the unsustainable pattern of high consumption and the warped redistribution of revenues based on a massive external debt.

According to the initiative, in-depth and genuine reforms must be applied at the earliest to curtail the country’s heavy dependence on hydrocarbons, especially in the context of scarcity and duress, but woefully the Government missed an opportunity to take the salutary and remedial actions during Algeria’s financial abundance way back in the 80’s.