TUNISIA - Tunisia's Decision Makers.

For the energy sector and the country's hydrocarbons, the decision making system in Tunisia is quite simple. There are laws for this sector under which technocrats in charge function efficiently. The Ministry of Industry, Energy, Small and Medium Businesses controls the petroleum sector.

In each of the state companies under this ministry, power is held by the CEO, following the French system. But beyond their specific area of work, the CEOs have little or no influence over the sector as a whole. Tunisia's bureaucracy is highly educated.

Key decisions concerning this sector are taken collectively by the council of ministers, where the weight is political and the balance of power is held overwhelmingly by the President of the Republic, Zine el-Abdine Ben Ali, and his close allies. The technocrats in Tunisia are controlled by the political leadership, under Ben Ali (see gmt16TunisWhoApr14-08).

Emphasis in Tunisia's energy policy is on its shift to natural gas, with the prospects of finding major oilfields not encouraging. The country's petroleum law, in effect since the beginning of 2000, includes special incentives for companies to invest in an integrated venture to produce natural gas and generate electric power for sale to the state. The system of pricing gas which the government buys from producing operators has been improved considerably.

The General Energy Management division at the ministry supervises the sector's state companies. It has three bodies: the Committee for E&P of Hydrocarbons, the Committee for Refining and Oil Products Distribution, and the Committee for Electricity, Gas and Energy Management.

Global inflation has hit Tunisia as well as other Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. Stone-throwing demonstrators protesting against rising living costs and unemployment on April 8-10 clashed with police in Tunisia's central town of Redeyef, located in the phosphate mining region of Gasfa. Police arrested more than 20 people, but later freed most of them. Eight were charged with public disorder and damaging property. Tunisia has North Africa's biggest middle class but after years of improving living standards the rising prices of imported commodities are making people feel poorer. There were such riots last week in Algeria, Morocco and Egypt (see omt16TunisExportsApr14-08).