Report of the Ministry of Finance: Only public banks without the rest of the public establishments achieve positive results.

The three public banks (B Hash Bank, the Tunisian Bank and the National Agricultural Bank) managed to develop their net banking output during the 2016/18 period by 57 percent to reach To the level of 538 million dinars, according to a report on public enterprises published by the Ministry of Finance on its website.
The development of the output enabled the increase in the net result of these public financial institutions, during the same period, by 43.8 percent, equivalent to 119.3 million dinars.
On the other hand, the technical exploitation revenues for each of the National Social Security Fund and the National Retirement and Social Security Fund for the year 2018 were estimated at 6887 million dinars.
Technical costs of exploitation amounted to 8,186 million dinars, recording a deficit of 1299 million dinars as a result of exploitation, of which 74 percent goes to the National Pension and Social Security Fund.
This prompted the state to allocate 200 million dinars from its budget to reduce this deficit.
The structural deficit of the National Social Security Fund and the National Pension and Social Security Fund led to an increase in the list of debts of the National Sickness Insurance Fund by about 4,691 million dinars until the end of 2018.
As for the rest of public establishments, the exploitation revenues were estimated at 21,173 million dinars in 2016, and these revenues are limited considering It barely covers the exploitation costs amounting to 20,930 million dinars.
The difficult financial situation experienced by public enterprises is explained by the low value of net profits achieved by some of them, which amounted to 170.5 million dinars. These profits cannot cover the net losses realized by public enterprises, which are estimated at 1326 million dinars.
The report attributed this situation to the disruption of production (strikes and sit-ins) in some important establishments, such as the Gafsa Phosphate Company, so that the annual rate of total stoppage in production centers during the 2016/2018 period is about 85 days, in addition to transportation problems similar to the disruption of line 15 as a result of floods, which the mining basin witnessed in a year 2017. The investments of the National Railway Company were delayed, which resulted in limiting the activity of the Tunisian Chemical Complex within the limits of 39 percent of the production capacity.
Wage and support block worsens
The report of the Ministry of Finance also attributed the worsening of the situation of public enterprises to the effect of the wage block, as this block was estimated at 3,2939 million dinars in the public establishment in 2016, registering an increase of 40 percent compared to 2011, compared to a decrease in exploitation revenues by 2 percent compared to 2011.
The report stated that The wage bloc in 2016 witnessed record increases compared to 2011 for the Tunisian Electricity and Gas Company and the Tunisian Chemical Complex, respectively, by 48 percent and 43.3 percent. In addition to adopting a pricing policy for most enterprises that does not keep pace with the cost of production.
The same document explained the situation of public enterprises with high financial burdens as a result of the development of the exchange rate of the dollar and the euro compared to the dinar, similar to the Tunisian Electricity and Gas Company, which recorded exchange losses and bank interest estimated at 1500 million dinars, and the Grain Board, whose burdens witnessed an upward trend of dates of 68 million dinars In 2016, it reached 86 million dinars in 2017 to about 100 million dinars in 2018. The upward trend in the prices of crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas and raw materials negatively affected the financial balance of companies benefiting from state support.
As a result, state support (grants for exploitation and investment grants) continued to rise for public enterprises, as the total transfers, according to the financial statements of these establishments, went from 2,102.9 million dinars in 2016 to 3,694.1 million dinars in 2017, to reach 5,139,4 million dinars in 2018 i.e. An increase of 144 percent between 2016 and 2018. The value of the subsidy for the benefit of the grain office amounted to about 1300 million dinars in 2018 in support of the grain system and 1500 million dinars to support the hydrocarbons that were directed to the Tunisian Company for Refining Industries and a subsidy of 1,200 million dinars under the title of subsidizing the cost of electricity production for the benefit of the Tunisian Electricity and Gas Company.
This comes in addition to the state’s efforts to allocate treasury advances, treasury loans and state guarantees, and for example, state guarantees on bank loans granted to public enterprises in 2018 amounted to 2592.7 million dinars.
The two institutions of the tobacco sector represent the only exception to this rule, considering that the increase in production capacity and the total volume of sales during the period 2016/2018 compared to the period 2011/2015 enabled the provision of resources to the state budget under the title of tobacco collection by 4,923.7 million dinars during the 2016/2018 period in exchange for financial effort. The state has a limit of 500 million dinars for the two institutions in the form of advances and loans on the public treasury to support its liquidity, which suffers from severe shortages due to negative margins on foreign cigarette sales.
Proceeds from state contributions
On the other hand, the state’s revenues from these establishments amounted to 263.5 million dinars in 2018, which represents only 5.1 percent of the total transfers of public establishments, which shows the imbalance between “payments and revenues” between the state and public enterprises, which resulted in severe and non-depletion. It was preceded by the state's resources, and it was not easy to control this imbalance considering the economic and social approach adopted by the state at the level of subsidizing some materials and fixing prices for some services and products, especially for the transport, medicine, energy and some consumer materials sectors.