Bessem Ben Dhaou –
SFAX (Tunisia). Tunisian Foreign Minister Nabil Ammar discussed with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis the issue of recovery of “stolen” funds during the mandate of the late president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
This occurred during a meeting between the two ministers in the framework of a working visit made by the Tunisian Foreign Minister to Switzerland, according to a statement released by the Tunisian Foreign Ministry.
During the meeting Ammar touched on the dossier of funds appropriated and taken abroad, including Switzerland, estimated at around 5 billion dollars.
He underlined “the absolute priority that the Tunisian authorities attach to accelerating and completing the process of recovering these funds, which will help enable Tunisia to support its development efforts by relying on its own capabilities”.
For his part, the Swiss minister affirmed his country’s willingness to further strengthen consultation and cooperation with Tunisia in various sectors, especially economic and development.
According to the text of the communication, he expressed his full understanding of the importance of the issue of recovery of funds stolen from Tunisia.
On March 20, 2022, Tunisian President Kais Saied announced the issuance of a presidential decree regarding the recovery of “stolen” funds from what he defined as “those who are convicted of having plundered the money of the Tunisian people”. Saeed said at the time, “The value of the money looted from the country is estimated at 13.5 billion dinars (about $5 billion).” He had stressed that “it must be returned in exchange for a criminal settlement with the businessmen involved in the looting,” and that “The number of those who looted the country’s money is 460 people, according to a report published by the National Committee of investigation into bribery and corruption”, without, however, naming them.
More than 12 years after the Tunisian Revolution, successive governments since 2011 have failed to recover most of the money smuggled by Ben Ali’s family and his collaborators, money that is reportedly found in Switzerland, France, Canada and Belgium , Germany, Italy, Spain, Lebanon and Luxembourg, as revealed by the Tunisian Central Bank in 2015.
In March 2021, the Tunisian presidency announced that Swiss authorities had transferred part of the funds “stolen” during the reign of deposed president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, “around 3.5 million dinars ($1.27 million) to account of the Tunisian State at the Central Bank”.
