Tunisian bakers strike over unpaid subsidies

Tunis, Oct 19 (AFP/APP): Thousands of Tunisian bakers staged a strike Wednesday to demand that the state pay up overdue subsidies, but suspended the action in the evening after reaching a deal with the government.

The national bakery owners’ union said some 3,200 of their businesses had closed, representing 95 percent of the North African country’s state-backed bread-makers.

They were demanding payment of 14 months of overdue subsidies, adding up to around 250 million dinars (nearly $78 million), the union said.

In the early evening, union head Mohamed Bouanane told AFP that the strike had been “suspended” after the government agreed to pay out fees covering the first four months — some $23 million.

Subsidies on basic goods are a highly sensitive political issue in Tunisia, where a public finance crisis has caused repeated shortages of subsidised flour, sugar and other basic goods in recent months.

The North African country is years into a grinding economic downturn exacerbated by inflation that hit nine percent year-on-year in August.
Several dozen striking bakery owners staged a protest on Wednesday outside the headquarters of the UTICA business lobby group in the capital Tunis.

“It’s been more than a year that we’ve been paying from our pockets to produce bread, we’ve had enough,” said Najib Mouhamadi, who owns a bakery employing six people in the northeastern province of Nabeul.

A further 1,200 bakeries that do not receive subsidies functioned normally through the day.

The strike came days after drivers in Tunis formed long queues at petrol stations as fuel deliveries faltered, stirring anger against the government of President Kais Saied who has installed one-man rule since a dramatic power grab in July 2021.

Tunisia is in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a $1.9-billion loan that would also allow it to access international creditors, hitherto spooked by the country’s CCC credit score from ratings agency Fitch.

The loan package, agreed to by IMF experts last week and expected to be approved by the lender’s board in December, stipulates that the state gradually scrap the subsidy system and replace it with cash transfers to the neediest households.