Casablanca Cracks Down on Cafes Owing Years of Unpaid Public Space Fees

More precisely, 3,300 recovery notices were sent to the owners of cafes in the Roches noires, Anfa, Sidi Belyout and Maarif districts, so that they can pay their arrears related to the occupation of public domains (ODP) for the last 4 fiscal years.

The objective is to increase the city’s revenue, which has changed little in recent years, said Nabila Rmili during the October session of the Casablanca Municipal Council, specifying that 85% of businesses operating on its territory have not paid anything since 2018.

Faced with this observation, the council decided to focus its recent work on "activating a program to improve tax revenues through the expansion of the tax base, tax collection and control". A component that is lacking in the municipality, she deplored, stressing that this initiative is mainly aimed at expanding the tax base of Casablanca, reducing the remaining to be collected, increasing tax revenues and valuing properties and their revenues.

In the long term, the municipality hopes to reach 2.67 billion dirhams in tax revenues. And to achieve this major objective, the mayor announced that one-stop shops have been set up in the districts to facilitate the task for the bad payers. "Instead of going to the cybercafé, connecting to rokhas.ma and finding it difficult to pay their taxes, several districts have opened payment services as part of facilitating access to public services," she said.