During his visit to the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Fisheries on Friday, President Kais Saied considered that there are lobbies working to abuse Tunisians by fabricating crises related to food products such as milk in order to inflame social conditions. In a video released by the Presidency of the Republic, he stressed that the state will confront with the full force of the law all those who seek to starve Tunisians by fabricating crises affecting many items such as medicines, milk, coffee, sugar and rice. He added that they invent crises in the period between elections to use them as a bargaining chip to get what they want, while they have a lot of money at their disposal during the election campaign. Kais Saied said that it is necessary to have a strategic stock of milk, stressing that the state will not leave the Tunisian people without basic foodstuffs. The President of the Republic added that Tunisia is full of wealth and that the Ministry of Agriculture has the experts to perform miracles. Communitarian agricultural companies, such as the one set up in the Zaghouan governorate, are capable of absorbing large numbers of unemployed, when Tunisians are provided with legal mechanisms. He promised that in the future Tunisia will have a strategic supply of grain to achieve total food independence, noting that he will work to fulfil the will of Tunisians and cleanse the country and its institutions of those who do not want to serve the Tunisian state. He called on Tunisians to work to create wealth in a healthy atmosphere that would give them all their rights after providing them with the necessary mechanisms and cleansing the country of lobbies. He also urged that everyone be allowed to import fodder so that no one party monopolises the market, and encouraged the creation of communitarian companies until the dispersal of property is ended. In the same context, he stressed that he will work to facilitate things in order to create thousands of jobs, adding that he will not stand idly by in the face of those who try to falsify the facts by spreading chaos and rumours to achieve their ends. For his part, Minister of Agriculture, Abdelmonem Belati, stressed that Tunisia will work to achieve self-sufficiency in the production of durum wheat next season, with a supply of around 12 million quintals, pointing to the efforts being made in the fodder sector in relation to milk and meat production. The minister added that Tunisia is looking forward to a good season for dates and olives, which it is working to collect in the best conditions. Tunisia will produce about 200 thousand tonnes of olive oil this season, exceeding last year's production by about 20 thousand tonnes, he pointed out. The minister said that the adoption of good governance by his ministry has enabled it to save 4.8 million dinars compared to last year in the distribution of subsidised fuel in the sea fishing sector. He noted that some parties obtained this fuel illegally and with the complicity of the administration.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse