The Tunisian President calls for taxing the rich instead of removing subsidies for the poor – Al-Hiwar Al-Jazaeryia

Tunisian President Kais Saied called for imposing additional taxes on the rich to avoid removing subsidies from the poor.

“Instead of raising subsidies under the pretext of rationalizing it, additional (taxes) payments can be employed on those who unjustly benefit from subsidizing many materials and without submitting to any external dictates,” Saeed said during his meeting with Prime Minister Naglaa Boden on Thursday.

And he cited the old saying of the companion Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, “If I received my affairs, I would not have turned my back, I would have taken from the rich their curiosity of money and returned it to the poor.”

Last April, the Tunisian president rejected what he described as the “dictates” of the International Monetary Fund and stressed the need for “self-reliance” to overcome the economic crises the country is going through.

This comes as the Tunisian Finance Minister, Siham Nemsieh, warned that any defect in the repayment of foreign loans would lead to “the bankruptcy of the state,” and after Parliament approved an agreement for Tunisia to obtain a loan from the African Export-Import Bank worth half a billion dollars.

Saeed stressed – according to what was stated in a statement by the presidency after his meeting with Prime Minister Naglaa Boden at the Carthage Palace – “the need to achieve the desired (financial) balance by imagining new methods based on justice and preserving civil peace.”

Saeed said, “Instead of raising subsidies under the name of rationalizing it, additional (taxes) payments can be employed on those who unjustly benefit from subsidizing many materials (referring to the rich) and without submitting to any external dictates.”

He added, “There is no room for any minister to act outside the policy set by the President of the Republic,” stressing that “harmony is required among all members of the government.”