The Algerian Central Bank Chief, Rostom Fadli who has been in office for less than two years has been indefinitely fired by the Algerian President Adelmadjid Tebboune on Monday. This was reported by the presidency who did not give any further explanations.
Tebboune “on Monday ended the functions of the Governor of the Bank of Algeria, Mr. Rostom Fadli, and appointed Mr. Salah Eddine Taleb to replace him,” it said in a statement.
Fadli had taken office in June 2020 as interim head of the central bank of Africa’s fourth-biggest economy, later being confirmed in the role.
Algeria is a rentier economy dependent on oil exports for 90 percent of its foreign income, and therefore vulnerable to price movements.
Despite seeing those revenues explode in recent months with the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the North African country has also been hit hard by concurrent price hikes on its vital wheat imports.
Algeria has also threatened to suspend its gas exports to Spain, the latest twist in a complex triangle of diplomatic tensions between the gas supplier, the gas importer and their shared neighbor Morocco — all against the background of skyrocketing prices driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Spain has been in talks with Morocco about helping the North African kingdom boost its gas supplies. That could possibly be done by allowing Morocco to use processing facilities in Spain that could handle imports by ship of liquified natural gas (LNG), which could come from a variety of suppliers. Gas could then be sent to Morocco via an existing pipeline that crosses the Strait of Gibraltar.
Spain, however, also imports natural gas from Algeria. And Algeria is in the midst of a deep diplomatic freeze with Morocco, with which it shares a land border. Algeria severed ties with Morocco last August. Then it choked off one of Morocco’s sources of gas by switching off a gas pipeline that runs across their shared border.
Morocco has turned to Spain for help in trying to make up the shortfall — a prospect that appears to be raising hackles in Algiers.