The Assembly of People’s Representatives (ARP) approved in a plenary session held on Tuesday afternoon the laws closing the state budgets for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
During the plenary, MPs criticised the delay in approving these budgets, saying it would affect Tunisia’s relations with donors, its rating by international rating agencies and investments.
They went on to say that the adoption of laws closing budgets whose contents they did not know risked compromising them, and called for their predecessors to be held accountable and for the veil to be lifted on the expenditure made under these budgets.
For them, the law on the closure of the State budget is one of the main instruments of control exercised by the Assembly, enabling it to obtain information on the management of public expenditure.
For her part, Finance Minister Sihem Nemsia said that her ministry had submitted the bills concerned to Parliament within the set deadlines, noting that there had been a delay at parliamentary level.
Regarding
the bill to close the state budget for 2021, the minister pointed out that the delay in passing this legislation was due to the dissolution of the previous parliament.
Nemsia noted that the adoption of the law on the closure of the budget does not mean the final closure of the file, nor does it mean the abandonment of legal proceedings against any perpetrator who has committed a crime or harmed the national community.
She added that her department was currently working on draft laws to close the state budgets for 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The minister also noted that the amendment of the Foreign Exchange Code would make it possible to overcome a number of difficulties faced by Tunisian and foreign investors, as well as Tunisian citizens in general.
“This new code represents a revolution in this field, especially as the current foreign exchange code dates back to the 1970s,” she said, believing that this text will meet the expectations of Tunisians.