“British Gas will not leave Tunisia and has never expressed an intention to do so,” said the British Group’s Executive Vice President and Director of Management for Africa, the Middle East and Asia, Sami Skander.
“We continue to work in Tunisia and to explore new opportunities. Although the phenomenon of sit-ins and strikes is annoying, the group will not leave the country,” said the vice president of BG at the end of a meeting on Tuesday in Tunis with Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali.
“We were reassured by the Prime Minister, who said that Tunisia remains a country of investment and business.”
He, however, insisted that “the main purpose of the group is the production and supply of gas in the country, not job creation.”
“Despite the events that marked the country, the group has not stopped its activities in the last 12 months,” he said, noting that “employees of the group observed no strikes or sit- ins. People who protested outside the offices of BG did not belong to the group’s subsidiaries.”
The head of BG Group also argued, at a meeting held on Tuesday morning with the Minister of Industry and Trade, Mohamed Lamine Chakhari, that “problems at the unit of Sfax, are only temporary problems, which can be solved thanks to the combined efforts of various parties.”
It should be remembered that inhabitants of the town of Nagta in Sfax, have observed for several days, a sit-in outside the unit of BG Group preventing technicians’ access to the station to undertake maintenance work.
The Minister of Industry and Trade announced that the government is to “address problems inherent to some areas of tension, to allow production units to resume their activities.”
Established in Tunisia since 1995, the “British Gas” group has invested to date, $ 3.7 billion in its various production sites.
BG provides 60 percent of the country’s gas production and employs over 1,000 people (permanent and contract).
