Billion-Dollar New City Project Near Tangier Fails to Attract Residents

Only 36 residents are settled in the new town of Chrafat instead of 150,000, i.e. 0.3% of the initially set objective. The project is stagnating even though it has already addressed more than 1 billion dirhams out of 2.8 billion dirhams (the overall budget). The city, planned on 1,300 hectares, was nevertheless supposed to serve as a model of urban harmony, ecology and respect for the environment, reports Al Akhbar. The causes? We note a lack of planning, a lack of involvement of the municipalities, disputes over the land base, etc.

A similar situation in the three other planned new towns: Tamesna near Rabat, Tamansourt in the suburbs of Marrakech and Lakhyayta in Casablanca. According to the latest report from the Court of Auditors, the projects implemented in the new towns have failed: the number of residents and housing units built did not exceed 20% of the announced objectives. Almost none of the planned public infrastructure has been realized.

For example, Tamansourt has no tourist, hotel or university project, although it was supposed to fulfill residential, tourist, university and ecological functions. As for Tamesna, it only fulfills the residential function. Yet partnership and financing agreements aimed at reviving and developing these two new towns had been concluded, respectively in 2013 and 2014.