Politics

Tunisia: Despite experts’ warnings, President Saied wants central bank powers reviewed

Published

8 months ago

September 9, 2023

Tunisian President, Kais Saied is championing a constitutional review that will allow the central bank to finance the budget directly by buying state bonds.

A distinction must be established between the bank’s function in battling inflation and its position in supporting the budget, President Saied said during Friday’s visit to the bank’s offices.

He also emphasised that the central bank was a public organisation and was not autonomous from the government.

Saied said that “the budget financing law which says that the bank cannot grant loan facilities or acquire bonds issued by the state should be developed”.

Former central bank governor, Marouan Abassi had warned against the move and insisted that allowing the bank to buy treasury bonds had real risks to the economy, including increased liquidity strain, rising inflation, and a decline in the value of the Tunisian dinar.

The detractors of President Saied’s position claim that an attempt to change the 2016 financial law would threaten the bank’s independence and raise the possibility of increased state involvement in monetary policy, particularly in light of the expanding fiscal deficit, the lack of financial resources, and the challenges associated with borrowing from abroad.

Although Tunisia and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) struck a preliminary deal in October and Saied declared this year he would not accept “diktats” and that subsidy cuts might trigger protests, talks on a $1.9 billion loan have stagnated.

According credit ratings agencies, Tunisia could default, like other African countries like Ghana, Zambia and Ethiopia, on its foreign debt despite the bulk of its debt being internal.

Politics

Burkina Faso investigating reports of northern killings

Published

19 hours ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A government spokesman has revealed that Burkina Faso is looking into reports that 223 people were killed by the Burkinabe army in two villages in the north in February.

The killing was first reported by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), causing a rift between the junta-led West African state and some foreign media that published the report. The HRW report released on Thursday said that the military had executed residents of Nodin and Soro, including at least 56 children, as part of a campaign against civilians suspected of working with jihadist terrorists. The report was based on interviews with witnesses, members of civil society, and other groups.

Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, a spokesman for the government, said that HRW’s claims were “peremptory” and that the junta was not unwilling to look into the claimed crimes.

“An investigation has been launched into the killings in Nodin and Soro,” Ouedraogo said in a late-evening statement, quoting a statement from a regional prosecutor on March 1.

Since Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger’s militaries took over in a series of coups from 2020 to 2023, violence in the area has gotten worse. This is because of the ten-year fight with Islamist groups related to Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Attacks on Burkina Faso got much worse in 2023, with more than 8,000 people killed, according to the U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group ACLED.

Politics

S’Africa lengthens troop deployment in Mozambique, Congo DR

Published

3 days ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a speech that South Africa’s military would keep sending troops to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are both in the middle of wars.

The extension will leave 1,198 members of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) in eastern Congo for an unknown amount of time. They are there as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force helping Congo fight rebel groups.

The statement also said that 1,495 members of the SANDF would keep working in Mozambique, where they have been since 2021 helping the government fight dangerous extremism in the north.

After two SANDF troops were killed and three were hurt by a mortar bomb in Congo in February, South Africa’s military operations abroad have been looked at more closely at home this year.

Meanwhile, the major opposition party in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance, said that Ramaphosa sent troops into a war zone without being ready.
Under the supervision of the UN, the SANDF has taken on many dangerous and difficult peacekeeping tasks over the years to help war-torn African countries stay stable and peaceful.

In 2003, South Africa was one of the first countries to send troops to Burundi to help the peace process. During the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peacekeeping mission in 2000, the SANDF led attempts to stabilize the country’s politics, rebuild and improve infrastructure, and train DRC troops.