After a week of open strike, in Thala, 250 kilometers from the Tunis capital, a general strike was started this Monday, March 9. Work in public administrations was suspended, apart from that in health establishments.
Protesters carried out a peaceful march the next day in the city to protest against “the government’s marginalization policy”.
The poverty rate reached 67%
For Nafaa Zbidi, an associative activist of the Thala theater association of reality and member of the Popular Unit Party, citizens demonstrate their fed up because of the rate of poverty and a “catastrophic development state”.
(quote_Box_Center) »The Thala delegation is priority, especially because of the poverty rate which reached 67% from the Ben Ali era. Our municipality receives donations and has no resources, and what it would be necessary is a development plan specific to the region and not in the country. »(/Quote_box_center)
According to Mr. Zbidi, the budget granted to Thala by previous governments was 150 million previous dinars. The development rate of development projects has only reached 7%, he adds.
The Minister of Development visiting Thala this Saturday
A meeting took place this Wednesday, March 11 in Tunis between the head of government, Habib Essid and a delegation from Thala on Wednesday, March 11. Agreements would have been found but nothing is certain yet.
Composed of members representative of sit-in-parts, civil society, administration and deputies of the region, the Thala delegation insisted on the importance of finding solutions “to blocking development in thala”.
A meeting at the Ministry of Equipment took place in the evening of Wednesday, March 11 in the presence of four ministers: Mohamed Salah Arfaoui, Minister of Equipment, Hatem El Ich, Minister of the Domain of State and Land Affairs, Zied Ladhari, Minister of Employment and Vocational Training, and Yassine Brahim, Minister of Development.
Secretaries of State as well as deputies and representatives of the Thala delegation were among the presents at this meeting where two important decisions were made:
Yassine Brahim, Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation, will travel this Saturday, March 14 in Thala, accompanied by secretaries of state, deputies at ARP as well as the governor of the region, Atef Boughattas.
The visit of a government delegation within a period not exceeding 15 days in Thala in order to study the projects blocked in the city.
Nafaa Zbidi also said that “this citizen movement that Thala knows is not political” and that protest movements will continue if there is no development and persistence of unemployment in the region.
(Pull_quote_Center) “They deprived us of living with dignity,” he said. (/Pull_quot_center)
