“Let it be a war of iron against the monopolists,” a new promise made by the President of the Republic, Kais Saied, on Saturday evening, August 28, 2021, when he traveled to the Bir Mcharga area of the governorate of Zaghouan, where units of the National Guard thwarted 30,000 tons of iron stored for speculative purposes a few days ago.
During the weeks, Tunisia has known a crisis in the supply of building iron and an unprecedented rise in its prices, and in parallel with that, the prices of vegetables, grains and vegetable oils rose after the Ministry of Trade launched campaigns to raid cold stores, which revived the black market.
throwing accusations
The rise in iron prices affected the works and contracting sector after the construction halted, as it employs a total of about 500,000 Tunisians between contractors and workers with construction-related professions, according to the head of the National Trade Union Chamber of Building and Public Works Contractors, Mehdi Fakhfakh.
Fakhfakh, in a statement to “JDD Tunisie”, accused the iron manufacturers of being behind the crisis, explaining that the price of one ton of iron amounted to 3000 dinars, and the price of iron rods reached more than 30 dinars.
He added that disrespecting pricing and raising prices in the absence of supervision and regulation led to the spread of monopoly and speculation and the boom of the black market.
On the other hand, a source from the Chamber of Iron Manufacturers told JDD Tunisie that 7 Tunisian institutions manufacture iron, including one factory owned by the state, while prices are set at the level of the Ministries of Trade and Industry without taking into account the cost of production.
He added that manufacturers are forced to take illegal practices to avoid selling at a loss or laying off workers and employees and bankruptcy of their societies.
The Ministry of Commerce intervenes
For its part, the Ministry of Commerce and Export Development announced, in a statement on August 20, 2021, that the price of building iron will not witness any change during the current period and the selling prices will not be raised to the public, “taking into account the current situation and the general trend towards price control, which it has voluntarily engaged in.” Most sectors and institutions.
The ministry called on all industrial units producing this “sensitive material” and wholesalers and retailers to adhere to production and distribution in a manner that ensures regular supply to the market, noting that it will address all speculative and monopolistic operations.
And it indicated that it will follow up the development of international prices of production inputs for this material, to take the necessary measures to adapt to the developments and initiate the necessary reforms that would raise the level of dependence on the national production of steel billets in a way that alleviates the impact of changes in national prices on the market.
The public prosecutor and spokesperson for the Zaghouan Court of First Instance, Sami Ben Hwidi, told the JDD Tunisie newspaper that the basis for the research on the seizure of tons of iron in a factory was the effect of receiving information on the Public Prosecution about one of the companies located in the Judicial Department of the Court of First Instance in Zaghouan that could be involved in suspicions. The monopoly of iron, so the Public Prosecution authorized the Central Division of the National Guard in Laoouina to start the research and commission it in an official capacity since Thursday and coordinate with it before heading.
He explained that the opposite party demanded the submission of supporters and adhered to the legality of the quantities of iron, and that the iron material was seized inside the company’s owner’s headquarters pending a final decision on the fullness of the seized and the record, and that research was underway to reveal the truth about whether the iron material was stored and the monopoly kit or whether it was a legitimate business.
It should be mentioned that, in a statement published by the organization “Tunisia produces” ,it reveals the details of the reservation process of 30 thousand tons of iron in one of the factories.
Recall that, the national organization “Tunisia produces” had recently dealt with the issue of the crisis of losing construction iron from the market despite the abundance of production in factories, which caused production to operate in the construction sector, public works and major projects.
