On Thursday, the Tunisian judiciary announced the arrest of 14 officials on suspicion of their involvement in a corruption case, and President Kais Saied vowed to cleanse the country of "some" without naming them, while the Tunisian Ennahda movement announced the formation of a committee to manage the crisis.
Judiciary spokesman Mohsen Daly said Thursday that the authorities had arrested 14 officials on suspicion of involvement in a corruption case in the phosphate sector.
He added that the suspects included a former state minister, a director of mines, a procurement director at the Ministry of Industry, and six directors.
President Saeed had pledged to address graft, and said that those involved in corruption in the phosphate sector must be held accountable, and that no one should escape the law.
The President of the Republic, #Qais_Said, supervises the meeting of the National Committee for Disaster Response, in the presence of Mr. Reda Gharslawi, who is in charge of running the Ministry of Interior.
#TnPR https://t.co/THbbIKkDa7
— Tunisian Presidency (@TnPresidency) August 12, 2021
The president vows
In Saeed's latest statements, he said, "Some disasters are natural, including water, fires and diseases, such as the (Corona) pandemic, and others are artificial, and even amount to crime."
The Tunisian president added - in a speech during the meeting of the National Committee for Disaster Management - that "some people want to burn forests and fields, and our armed, military and security forces will confront them because they want to harm the people."
For days, Tunisia has been witnessing fires in its forests, especially in the governorates of Bizerte (North), Jendouba (Northwest) and Kasserine (Central West), which destroyed hundreds of hectares (hectares of 10,000 square meters) of pine and Fernana forests.
Saeed also vowed to some - without naming them - to purify through the law and ostracize the water drainage channels, as he put it.
Renaissance statement
On the other hand, the Islamic Ennahda Movement (the largest party in Tunisia) demanded the resumption of the work of the stalled parliament in order to prepare for early elections, considering - in a statement - that the democratic path and respect for freedoms and human rights are "achievements for which the Tunisian people paid sacrifices and martyrs, and they cannot be abandoned. under any pretext.
The statement also considered that some of the president's decisions "go too far in grave breach of the constitution."
The Ennahda movement confirmed that it assigned a committee to manage the political crisis, with the task of "searching for solutions and understandings to avoid the worst of our country and return it to a normal institutional situation."