The 23 billionaires in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) have accumulated more wealth in the last three years than during the decade preceded them, reveals an Oxfam report.
While the region Mena, the most unequal in the world, is crumbling under debt and austerity, the rich in this region – people with a fortune greater than $ 5 million – saw their wealth of 75%.
Between 2019 and 2022, the fortune of 106,080 richest people (0.05 of the Pen MENA population) increased from $ 1600 billion to $ 3,000 billion.
This explosion of the ultra-rowment comes as all the countries in the MENA region sink into debt.
In Tunisia, public debt increased from 43% of GDP in 2010 to 80% in 2021, in Egypt from 70% to 90% and in Morocco from 45% to 69%. Lebanon has seen its debt increase up to a bewildered level of 151% in 2020, when the country was forced to set up payment.
“In recent years have been surprising for the rich. They prospered while the pandemic and inflation have restricted the finances of families and forced millions of people to poverty, “said the report of the report and the main political advisor of Oxfam International, Nabil Abdo.
“Austerity measures are not the answer to the challenges of the Middle East-they only serve to protect the richest people in society so that they do not have to bear the weight of economic reforms, while strengthening inequalities and poverty,” he added.
Oxfam calls on governments to recover these extreme riches to serve the public interest. A 5% tax on fortunes greater than $ 5 million in Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan could generate $ 10 billion in revenue.
The Oxfam report published yesterday Monday on Monday, when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hold their annual GA in Marrakech.
Oxfam International (Oxford Committee for Famine Relief) is a confederation of around twenty independent charities around the world. They work together and in collaboration with local partners distributed in 66 countries around the world.
