Tunisia’s government is working to limit the number of civil servants after claims that Tunisian state institutions have incurred financial losses of up to 6.5 billion dinars (around 2.2 billion dollars).
The cabinet has proposed a voluntary resignation of around 120,000 employees by 2020 to shrink the number of civil servants to around 500,000.
An independent auditors syndicate said the civil sector’s losses have amounted to 2,2 billion dollars.
Financial affairs expert Jamal al-Sassi stressed the importance of improving the financial situation of state institutions as a fist step in controlling the budget deficit.
According to official data, some 37 out of 107 institutions are facing financial problems.
Their revenues have dropped from 14 billion dinars in 2014 to 11.6 billion dinars in 2016. During the same period, the burden of wages has increased from 1.3 billion dinars (around 410 million dollars) to 1.7 billion dinars (around 600 million dollars).
Tunisian Economic and Financial Expert Saad Boumakhla said government counts have found that more than 100,000 civil servants have been receiving their salaries despite their lack of productivity.
These funds are being directed at unproductive social factions rather than spending them on development, he said.
Meanwhile, a survey conducted by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) found that the unemployment rate in Tunisia stood at 15.5 percent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2018, a stagnation compared to Q3 of the same year.
According to the national survey on population and employment for Q3 of 2018, the estimated number of the unemployed amounted to 644,900 out of the whole active population, against 642,800 for the Q3 of 2018.
