For several months in 2015, the streets of Tunisian cities were filled with protesters wielding handmade signs and empty petrol canisters. “Winou el petrole?” ("Where is the oil?") incensed citizens cried. They were protesting the Tunisian government’s restrictions on public access to oil records.
“The government has nothing to hide concerning the subject of energy,” Zakaria Hamid, Minister of Energy, Industry and Mines resolutely declared at a press conference in June of that year, following protests. Anyway, he continued, “Tunisia is not an oil- and petroleum-rich country.”
