As the government navigates a potential crisis in the public budget, some Tunisian stores are restricting products like cooking oil, sugar, and butter, while large lineups have plagued petrol stations amid a fuel scarcity.
For things that were in low supply, several grocery stores only sold single packs, while traffic in some areas of the capital was backed up by lines at gas stations.
Other than declaring a desire to tackle commodity speculators and hoarders, President Kais Saied and his administration have made no comments regarding the shortages. Saied, though, fired the president of Tunisia’s gasoline distribution firm on Friday.
The World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development provided the government with two tranches of financial assistance this summer to help pay for grain purchases. However, the government is now applying for an IMF bailout to help finance the budget and settle debt.
There is a severe lack of biscuits and snacks, according to Azzouz, a trader in Tunis’s working-class Ettadamon neighborhood. “There is no oil, sugar, or butter.”
Shopping nearby, Khadija said that she was unable to find any discounted cooking oil and could not afford other brands.
We don’t know what we’re going to do, she said, adding that things are getting harder every day.
Even before dawn on Friday, lines began forming at a gas station in Tunis’s La Marsa neighborhood, with cars lined the road in the direction of approaching traffic.
A representative of the UGTT labor union’s petrol workers department named Silwan al-Samiri said on Thursday on IFM radio that the government needed to find a way to pay for imports.
Apart from public pronouncements criticizing corruption and speculators, President Saied has offered little indication of his preferred economic policy since assuming most of the authorities in July 2021 in actions his detractors term a coup.
