Convictions suspended and heavy fines for the former CPG CEO and the former Lotfi Ali, in a corruption case affecting phosphate transport contracts. A file which dates back to a complaint filed in 2024 by the Raqabah observatory.
The criminal chamber specializing in financial corruption affairs to the Tunis Court of Appeal pronounced a suspended two-year sentence against the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Gafsa Phosphates Company, as well as six other former company officials.
The Court also sentenced the former deputy for the dissolved parliament to two years in prison, Lotfi Ali, as well as his brother, Mouldi Ali. The two men were also ordered to pay fines exceeding 9 million Tunisian dinars.
These sentences were pronounced in the context of a case relating to suspicions of financial and administrative corruption linked to the transportation contracts of phosphate under the company of Gafsa phosphates.
The case started when the Raqabah observatory filed a complaint in July 2024, concerning an extraction and transport contract of 600,000 tonnes of purified phosphate of the Meknassy mine. The accusations include the exploitation of the public service to obtain industrial advantages, the violation of regulations relating to transport operations and the provision of certificates containing false information.
The accusation chamber specializing in the financial corruption affairs of the Tunis Court of Appeal had then issued deposit mandates against a former Minister of Industry, an ex-director general of the Compagnie des Phosphates de Gafsa (CPG), and three businessmen, including a former deputy for the dissolved Parliament, involved in the transport of phosphates. The former CEO of the Gafsa phosphates company, Romdhane Souid and the businessman and former deputy, Lotfi Ali had been arrested on July 13, 2024 and then imprisoned.
Two deposit mandates had been issued against Lotfi Ali, and Romdhane Souid, as part of a case concerning this contract to extract and transport phosphates concluded between the CPG and a company belonging to Lotfi Ali, Mouldi Ali and Abdelwahab Hfaiedh.
