Tunisia's finance minister resigns

Tunisia's finance minister has resigned following a disagreement with the policies of the government led by Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, an official said on Friday. Houcine Dimassi said in a letter of resignation on Friday that his bid to favor healthy public finances differed with most ministers in the government. He said they want "an electoral approach resulting in sudden and vertiginous state spending." Concretely, Dimassi complained of excessive spending. "As I tried to maintain a balance in public finances, I became aware that most members of the government were following an electoralist policy that was ballooning government spending," he said in a statement. These "excesses" are aimed at "gaining the sympathies of certain social groups ahead of the coming elections," he said. The "most serious matter" involved a bill before the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) that proposes to compensate partisans of the ruling Ennahda party, who suffered under former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and the "martyrs" who died in the uprising that unseated him in January 2011. "The bill would require considerable additional spending, taking into account the significant number of potential beneficiaries," he added, saying it would be to the "detriment of the (already) difficult economic and financial situation." Dimassi is the second minister in less than a month to resign. The other was the minister in charge of administrative reform, Mohamed Abbou, known as "Mr. Anti-Corruption." Dimassi also criticized the recent firing of Central Bank chief Mustapha Kamel Nabli.