The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is “ready to start negotiations over the next few weeks on the establishment of a program” of aid for Tunisia, conditional on the implementation of reforms, he announced on Wednesday 22 June in a press release. This decision was made “after several months of technical discussions with the Tunisian authorities”, underlined the institution. Tunisia, in the grip of a serious political and financial crisis, had begun preliminary discussions with the IMF at the beginning of the year to obtain a new loan.
“The seriousness of the aftermath of the war in Ukraine increases the need to implement ambitious reforms without delay”, underlined Jihad Azour, administrator of the IMF, at the end of a visit to the country. According to him, “Tunisia must urgently address the imbalances in its public finances by improving fiscal equity, limiting the growth of the large civil service wage bill, replacing generalized subsidies with transfers to the poorest, by strengthening its social safety net and reforming public companies that are losing money”. The IMF also calls for further opening the economy to private sector investment to create growth and jobs.
To justify the launch of negotiations, Mr. Azour observes that the “homegrown reform program as championed by the government is more credible and more likely to garner widespread support, and therefore has a better chance of success than in the past”. Tuesday, the Tunisian president, Kaïs Saïed, had called on the IMF to take into account the social consequences on the Tunisian population of the reforms which he calls for the implementation in exchange for a loan. No timetable has yet been advanced. In 2020, the IMF had already come to the aid of Tunisia, then in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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