A bill to put the economy back on track in this new Tunisia, which sometimes gives the impression of leading a cabal against the rich and wanting to change its economic model, there are times when one almost regains faith in the Assembly of People’s Representatives (ARP). 20 MPs recently presented a bill entitled ‘bill for economic freedom and fight against the cash economy’.
Although Article 2 of the bill “prohibits the public authorities from exerting illegal pressure or threatening legal punishment on any natural or legal person engaged in a legal economic activity”, at least three MPs who had signed the list of initiators of the bill asked to withdraw their signatures.
By November 22, 2024, the bill had arrived at the ARP’s Central Registry and had not yet been passed!
A ‘repressed’ economy according to the Heritage Foundation
It should be recalled that in the 2024 edition of the Index of Economic Freedom report by the American think-tank The Heritage Foundation, Tunisia fell 18 places in the world rankings. Under Kais Saïed, the country fell from 132nd to 150th out of a total of 178 countries. The Heritage Foundation report thus places Tunisia in the category of ‘repressed’ economies. But it’s unlikely to last!
As if it felt some restriction or pressure on certain economic activities, such as the distribution channels, which the Tunisian head of state has on several occasions called “starvation channels.
The bill, which has fewer than 20 deputies, proposes ‘to prohibit the criminalization of any legal and official economic activity, except in cases of undermining public order and security, and that this is legally justified and under the authority of the judiciary’.
And as if that weren’t enough, the same MPs proposed ‘prohibiting the public authorities from exerting any illegal pressure or threatening any natural or legal person carrying out a legal economic activity with legal punishment’.
Abolish the authorization system
The Tunisian head of state has called for this on several occasions, and the MPs who initiated this bill propose to ‘guarantee freedom of investment in all economic activities without the need for prior authorization from the authorities, except in the case of a clear threat to security, public health or the public interest’.
The initiators propose to abolish all administrative authorizations required prior to any economic activity and to establish by government decree a list of activities excluded from this freedom.
It should be noted that the Tunisian administration is trying to pre-empt this desire to abolish the system of authorizations, which creates a rent economy, by replacing authorizations with specifications, which have often been accused of being just as tailor-made and restrictive of investment freedom as authorizations.
What’s new in the bill is the demand that ‘the state should guarantee legal stability for local and foreign investors and refrain from taking measures that could affect their investments, except on the basis of duly substantiated legal grounds’.
Banks and insurance companies under the competitive microscope
It is well known (the OECD devoted an entire report to the Tunisian banking sector) that competition is far from being the ethic most followed by Tunisian banks and insurance companies. The CBF and the BCT do very little publicly to remedy this situation.
It is also well known that the Tunisian authorities do not bother to break the chain of competition (like the cold chain) by, for example, granting credit conditions to certain economic entities that defy all competition, while punishing the bankers who have done so.
Article 4 of the bill in question will try to remedy this, if the ARP agrees to pass it through the Finance Committee, the latter does all it can to pass it through the plenary, and the government finally accepts it.
But, as the saying goes, you could put Paris (and the whole of Tunisia) in a bottle with ifs. Let’s just say that Article 4 proposes to ‘oblige the authorities to defend competition and combat anti-competitive practices’. It even seeks to “prohibit legislation” in this area.
Fortunately, the same article counters all these pious wishes with ‘the public interest’. The recent OECD report proposed redefining the purpose of the CBF, transforming it from a professional body into a real regulator. The Tunisian government could at least start by moving in this direction!
