A Tunisian street cleaner, Lassad Mejri, said the country’s dire economy has made life so difficult for his family that they prepare just one meal a day, but could get worse as government funding drops. Reuters Report
Like many Tunisians, Mejri, 57, and his wife, Elzea, were already struggling to meet basic living expenses before the COVID-19 pandemic, rising global inflation and a crisis in state finances arrived in recent years.
“People are no longer happy and cannot smile. Everything is difficult. If you smile now, you feel bad,” said Mejri, who lives in the town of Teborba, 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of the capital Tunis.
Major, his wife and their son ate three meals a day. Now, Elzia prepares only one lunch, and if there are leftovers, they eat only in the evening.
Majori spends his working days sweeping streets and sidewalks in Teborba, pushing a wheeled plastic bin with him, to earn 400 dinars ($100) a month.
He said, “everything has become more expensive this year, we can’t buy anything anymore.”
Read: Tunisia expects inflation to reach 10.5% in 2023
Tunisia has been pushing for years for an international bailout to help stave off bankruptcy, but the country’s political instability and disputes over economic reforms have thwarted those efforts.
Last week, ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Tunisia’s sovereign debt, saying it was likely to default.
Shortages of some subsidized food and medicine already point to the government’s economic woes, and a default would make things worse by driving up the cost of debt and weakening the dinar, which would worsen inflation.
Mejori needs medicine for treatment, but he said he can no longer find it in Tunisia.
“This is not a shortage. This drug is no longer here,” he said. He said he managed to get some from a woman who imported it from France especially for her own mother.
Shortages in supermarkets and local shops have been seen across the country, with some products or rations of basic products such as sugar, milk, butter and cooking oil.
Even without these shortages, a 10 percent inflation rate — which economists say could be 20 percent for food items — means many Tunisians are buying less anyway.
In a market in Tunis, vegetable seller Tawfiq Moselmi, 53, said he was ashamed to demand such high prices, but was not making any profit.
“People see peppers and tomatoes and don’t buy them. Or they buy two peppers and two tomatoes,” he said.
Read: Ex-minister: IMF loan won’t end Tunisia crisis
