The Tunisian Institute for Strategic Studies (French: ITES) called for fiscal consolidation, through the optimization of unproductive current expenditure (including those devoted to an inefficient civil service), the targeting of subsidies and rising revenues by broadening the tax base and not by raising rates.
It is clear that the provisions of Budget Law 2018 show the ineffectiveness of raising rates to improve tax revenues, it pointed out.
In its last memo on the economy, the ITES added that fiscal consolidation is the keystone of the process allowing a return to an upward trajectory of economic growth.
“In fact, the structure of the state budget is biased. The swelling of the operating budget (61.5% of the total budget in 2018) to the detriment of the capital budget (only 16.2% in 2018) and the weight of the public debt (22.1% in 2018) is not at all conducive to unwinding macroeconomic imbalances and economic growth, “said the ITES.
