Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, issued a decree to impose a fee on the official exchange rate of foreign currencies of 27% for all purposes.
According to the decree, the revenue generated from the imposed fee is used to cover the expenses of development projects or pay off the public debt.
The Governor of the Central Bank Al-Siddiq Al-Kabir had proposed on March 5, through a letter addressed to the House of Representatives, to impose a tax on the official exchange rate of 27%, excluding sectors funded by the public treasury.
Al-Kabir attributed the reason for imposing the fees to the Central Bank’s “difficulty in providing the market’s foreign exchange needs since September 2023, in light of the increasing volume of public spending reaching the level of 165 billion dinars during the year 2023, in addition to parallel spending and the lack of clarity of the volume of public spending for the year 2024.
In a series of proposals, Al-Kabir called for speedy approval of a unified budget, rationalization of public spending, and reconsideration of certain financial policies.
The governor also called for addressing parallel spending from unknown sources, approving a unified government, and unifying public spending.
