2023-08-17 09:46:26
Large-scale shortages have plagued Tunisia for months. Citizens now live to the rhythm of shortages: bread, sugar, coffee, semolina, rice, flour and other consumer products that are among the most missing products on supermarket shelves. Soaring food prices and serial shortages are increasingly felt these days. While many basic products, in particular food, have been missing for several months already, the authorities have declared war on speculators, accused of causing the phenomenon or at least of amplifying it.
The vertiginous rise in prices and the tension on certain products have made the situation worrying enough to push President Kaïs Saïed on many occasions to gather around the same table, the Head of Government, the Ministers of the Interior, of Trade and Justice. Objective: to examine the current state of the market, disruptions in the distribution of certain consumer products, establish the diagnosis of dysfunctions, thus urging the government to work with the aim of guarantee the stability and availability of food products, especially those that are subsidized, while fighting against speculation in all its forms. The accusing finger is pointed at the speculators and the organized smuggling circles who are at the root of the instability and dysfunction of the market.
In this same context, the Head of State called, the day before yesterday, to “the application of the law against those individuals who cause crises on a daily basis with the aim of aggravating economic and social situations”. He even ordered the Minister of Justice to take legal action against monopolists and speculators among distributors operating in the cereals sector, in accordance with the provisions of the decree-law relating to the fight against illicit speculation.
The scheme speculators laid bare
This willingness of the State to fight firmly against this phenomenon of speculation no longer needs to be demonstrated. Speculators be warned: the law punishes any stockpiling of goods aimed at causing a shortage or disruption of supplies at the market level and those accused of organized economic crime, diversion of mass consumption products and fraudulent commercial practices.
The citizens, however, have repeatedly denounced the accentuation of the crisis which has been felt above all in terms of basic necessities, namely bread, cooking oil, flour, semolina, or again milk whose prices have soared in the face of a shortage of stocks, not to mention the fruits and vegetables that Tunisians produce but can no longer afford to buy.
For years, the issue of soaring basic foodstuffs (meat, fruits and vegetables and fruits) has not ceased to fuel the debate. While most express their incomprehension and dismay, others seek to point the finger at the culprits and find solutions. And when it comes to designating who is hiding behind a situation of rising prices that obeys no commercial logic, the sinister figure of the speculator is not far off.
The preservation of household purchasing power is always in sight. Extensive control and inspection operations should be launched by the Ministry of Commerce, mobilizing control brigades across the national territory to ensure the supply of the market, counteract shortages across the country, and regularly monitor the prices so that the law is applied in all its rigour.
The monopoly of goods, a phenomenon to be combated
The other infringement on the ground is the monopoly exercised by certain wholesalers on basic products (semolina, flour, durum and soft wheat, rice, coffee, etc.). Significant quantities are stored in these shops.
Small quantities are offered for sale. Urgent measures will be taken by the authorities to protect purchasing power, by supplying the national market with these staple foods, which are experiencing soaring prices to the chagrin of households. These measures also aim to strengthen control and monitoring mechanisms to track down speculators. Indeed, it was agreed to create joint work teams in the field which would carry out unannounced control campaigns with all the people concerned at central and regional level, and to create an operations room for real-time monitoring. . Moreover, the involvement of the citizen in the fight against speculative practices, in particular, becomes more than necessary. It is the first player in a position to regulate the market, by adapting its purchasing behavior. Experts pleaded for the development of mass distribution and the digitization of the various operations, to put an end to cases of monopoly and speculation.
According to the latest bulletin published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), devoted to the consumer price index for the month of July 2023, the inflation rate fell slightly to 9.1%, against 9.3% in June 2023. Consumer prices increased by 0.7% in July 2023, after rising by 0.4% the previous month. Despite this acceleration in the monthly increase in consumer prices, inflation declined due to the deceleration in the pace of price increases between July and June this year compared to the same period last year, according to the INS.
Listening to the complaints of citizens in this context of high cost of living, due in particular to the inflationary fallout from the global economic crisis and the disruption of supply chains, due to the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Head of the State calls on the executive to “deploy with more energy the levers of control and act to stop the upward spiral of prices and fight against all attempts to stir up social tensions by persecuting citizens by attacking their vital needs” . Indeed, the substantial rise in the prices of food products remains until today the dominant topic of concern in citizens’ daily conversations.
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