Three Proposals To Recover $ 50 Billion, Avoid External Debt

Members of the Finance and Budget Committee of the National People’s Assembly asked about the adequacy of the financial capabilities that are accumulated in the Algerian treasury, to commit to covering the decisions that are taken by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune during the first cabinet meeting,

The issue is primarily related to lifting taxes on income, affirming that “the decision is positive and serves the purchasing power of Algerian citizens, but the government is committed not to print money and avoid to fall into the foreign debt trap again, which will lead to the need to procure new financial resources, and in this regard, MPs proposed 3 solutions”.

A member of the Finance and Budget Committee of the National People’s Assembly, Ammar Moussa, considers that the decision of the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, to lift taxes on low-income people, a positive step that is previously requested by the popular majority, as it has been put forward several times in the National People’s Assembly, but the problem that remains today is related to how to provide financial coverage for the implementation of the decision, especially since the government has committed not to print money again, and the Finance Act of 2020 closes the door of external borrowing, except for some strategic sectors and projects with economic and social feasibility.

According to the text of the finance law 2020, this step can only be resorted to by passing through the lower chamber of Parliament, and consideration of the feasibility of external debt by its members, and it may also be resorted to if the National People’s Assembly agreed through the use of some banks in which Algeria is a shareholder, similar to the African Development Bank.

Moussa explained that the solutions that are available to the government today to bring in additional revenues lie in recovering the $ 50 billion from the black market.

“This will not be realized without endorsing Islamic financial services and restoring confidence in financial institutions by bypassing the sterile bureaucracy and not tightening the screws on savers of these banks. The fastest solution to recover money from the black market is to change the currency, and Algeria needs a brave decision like this to get rid of the black market once and for all in record time”.

For his part, member of the Finance and Budget Committee of the National People’s Assembly, Ahmed Zaghdar, considered, in a statement to Echorouk, that President Abdelmadjid decided to lift taxes on limited and weak wages, regardless of the recovery that it will achieve in the purchasing power of Algerians, which imposes the existence of new financial resources, which can be pumped by raising exports, and diversifying them to remain unconfined in hydrocarbons, wondering; “How can large quantities of Algerian potatoes be destroyed by the absence of mechanisms to export them?”

“The solution also lies in seeking new investments and seeking help from banks that Algeria had previously contributed to revitalizing their capital along the lines of the African Development Bank, the Arab Bank and the Islamic Bank.

He commented on the new government, saying, “We were hoping to create a ministry for the economy, which is concerned with managing the current economic crisis. The political crisis has ended today and we hope that the economic crisis will take the same direction.”