Decision Made: Tunisia Abolishes Controversial Article 16
The Council of Ministers has made the decision to repeal the infamous Article 16 of the 2014 Complementary Finance Law, which penalizes the possession of large amounts of cash exceeding 5,000 TND.
This measure was taken as part of a broader effort to combat parallel commerce and money laundering. However, in practice, it has posed several problems. For instance, farmers who travel to wholesale markets daily and return with tens of thousands of dinars in cash. Similarly, butchers need to have substantial amounts of money to purchase livestock. Would a breeder accept a check as payment for a 10,000 TND bull? On the other hand, law enforcement agencies have been applying the law, seizing these amounts.
Repealing this decision is a matter of common sense.
This is also good news for Algerians and Libyens who visit Tunisia and are subject to this rule. It was even the subject of a statement from Libyan authorities a few months ago, prior to the reopening of the Ras Jdir border post.
However, we can expect other decisions to follow in the coming period. The implementation of the check platform could facilitate transactions and definitively resolve the issue of trust between economic operators. While convincing the majority of Tunisians of the reliability of electronic transactions is a challenging task, we must continue to move forward on this path.
