TUNIS, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Tunisian Assembly of People's Representatives (ARP), or parliament, approved on Monday night a major cabinet reshuffle proposed by Prime Minister Youssef Chahed.
The 178 deputies present in the parliament voted on each member of the reshuffle. Each member should have an absolute majority of 109 votes in favor.
The Secretary of State for Transport won 125 votes, while all the other members gained at least 133 votes. The two candidates for Ministers of Defense and Finance had the most remarkable confidence with 153 votes in favor each.
Former Defense Minister Abdelkarim Zbidi, 67, returns to the post, while 55-year-old Lotfi Brahim, the former commander-in-chief of the Tunisian National Guard, takes the helm at the Interior Ministry. Taoufik Rajhi was named as minister of the Head of Government, a new ministerial position in charge of monitoring economic reforms.
The government of Chahed consisted of 26 ministers and 14 secretaries of state before the reshuffle. Now it has been expanded to 28 ministers and 15 secretaries of state.
"In the full respect of the Carthage Pact announced by the president in June 2016, we opted for a surgical evaluation of the government performance with a more participatory approach involving the various social partners, including the two trade unions," said Chahed in his address to the deputies.
In defense of his selection, Chahed made clear that he will adopt a more "honest" and transparent government attitude to get the country out of the crisis by formulating an economic and social plan as well as a medium-term development plan.
All the goals must be executable by 2020, according to the prime minister.
"The government must strengthen the state's capacities to mitigate its current failures, in order to win the economic battle, develop the competitiveness of our SMEs, promote our exports, conquer other markets, in addition to improving security capabilities against terrorism and smuggling," Chahed said.
In the first seven months of 2017, Tunisia witnessed an increase of 34 percent in phosphate production, 18 percent in exports, 31 percent in the number of tourists, 15 percent in fiscal revenue, and 7 percent in foreign investments.
As for tourism revenues, the Tunisian government's balance sheet shows a growth of 22 percent in Tunisian dinars.
Meanwhile, Chahed's new development plan will be oriented toward the profitable and efficient employment of the state's wealth.
"We were able to detect in the sector of the State Properties untapped, a total investment of about 5.2 billion dinars (2.13 billion U.S. dollars) in the three coming years," he noted.
On the strategic plan for 2020 introduced on Sept. 5, Chahed outlined his vision of restoring the macroeconomic balances of the country.
The prime minister promised a 5 percent economic growth against the current average of 3.5 percent, to stabilize the budget deficit at about 3 percent of GDP, and reduce the payroll to 12.5 percent from the current 40 percent.
"These strategic objectives of the current government for the next three years will able to reduce the unemployment by 3 percentage points," Chahed added.
Chahed's roadmap also includes tax and civil service reforms, such as the early and voluntary retirement system, regularization of social funds, development and modernization of public institutions to facilitate employability and social peace, and the promotion of banking governance.
