Soon after announcing that 20 billion dollars had been recovered, President Tebboune was mocked when he stated that another 36 million dollars had been confiscated from a family who kept it hidden somewhere in vast Algeria.
That brings the total sum of allegedly seized money to $56 billion, a sum that is about 35% of Algeria’s GDP or an amount that is higher than the GDP of Senegal and Gabon combined.
The announcement triggered mockery beyond Algeria’s borders. Naguib Sawiris, an Egyptian billionaire, stated on Twitter that 36 billion dollars meant that Algerian authorities had found a whole building filled with money.
These enormous figures were presented by Tebboune to local governors, where he tried to defend his performance in a puppet civilian presidency whose strings are pulled only by men in uniform.
Tebboune, despite the extraordinary rise in revenue and prices, is unable to demonstrate tangible achievements.
In 2022, Algeria’s economy grew by 4.1% and created 50,000 jobs, said Tebboune, omitting to mention how many jobs were lost.
For a population 40 million, 50,000 is a low number. This makes unemployment epidemic in an oil and gas rich country. The official youth unemployment rate is 32%.
Instead of encouraging entrepreneurship the Algerian president takes pride on encouraging unemployment and bragging about the cash handouts to around 2 million people.
Algeria’s growth has low impact on job creation due to the resource curse with a large oil and gas sector that has hit the limit in terms of job creation.
Source: north africa post
