Tunisia, which for decades was one of the first countries exporting phosphate in the world, is forced, today, to import it and manufacture it in Tunisia. During the past agricultural season, and the scandal of today’s state is that it is forced again to import after the continued disruption of production.
For more than ten years, all the successive governments that ruled Tunisia failed to solve the phosphate file, whose production was disrupted by many reasons. In 2010, the financial reserve of the Gafsa Phosphate Company was more than a thousand billion. Today, the company is unable to pay the wages of its workers every month and is forced to borrow and is unable to invest, renew and develop the means of production and work.
The Story of Phosphates in Tunisia is a Long One
The independence state, which benefited from its huge revenues, employed them in other areas outside the mining basin. It is not reasonable, after decades, that this region, which pumps billions daily into the public treasury, lacks a hospital and facilities that provide services to its residents. Over the course of many years, phosphate in the mining basin area turned into a curse and a source of congestion. Polluted cities without facilities and service centers, poverty, marginalization and unemployment.
Previous governments promised the residents of the mining basin area of development, employment and improvement of living conditions, but nothing was achieved, just false promises.
Unsuccessful and Powerless Rulers…
Phosphates revealed many facts, the most important of which is the fact that there is no justice in the distribution of wealth among the regions of the country, and it also revealed the great failure in controlling development plans, and revealed that all the rulers of Tunisia in recent years were unsuccessful and powerless rulers.
Today, the Gafsa Phosphate Company is at risk of collapse and its bankruptcy means unemployment of tens of thousands in all its branches, and the state is still watching passively, unable to take any initiative or present a rescue program. It only imports and borrows. The roads will remain closed, production is suspended, and the Gafsa Phosphate Company is constantly threatened with declaring bankruptcy and expelling thousands of workers!
Unfortunately, the phosphate wealth has turned into a curse not only for the inhabitants of the mining basin, but also for the state, which suffers billions in losses every day. The government must find solutions to the phosphate file and other files that have exhausted the state and threaten it with collapse. All production systems have collapsed at a time when political strife dominates and differences between all elected institutions intensify. None of the politicians in power as in the opposition thinks about the interest of the people and the state. Everyone seeks Just to share the cake.
