Justice Minister Ouahbi to Remove Officials Amid Contract Misconduct Allegations

These dismissals could take place in the coming days, reports Al Akhbar, which specifies that these civil servants had been appointed by the former Islamist minister, Mustapha Ramid. Ouahbi recently dismissed the ministry’s secretary general, Abdelillah Hakim Bennani, and the director general of the Foundation of Social Works, Mustapha Dahdouh, the newspaper recalls.

The origin of these dismissals lies in bad practices in the management of the ministry’s projects. Certain officials close to the PJD would have made decisions without consulting the minister. "These same officials would have some responsibility in the dysfunctions that several projects are experiencing, where the realization is dragging on or they have been definitively stopped," it is pointed out.

Recently, Ouahbi declared in parliament that he had opened an internal investigation into suspected corruption in the contracts related to the construction of the courts, revealing that certain companies were awarded contracts without carrying out the work entrusted to them. The files will be submitted to the public prosecutor’s office to initiate legal proceedings, he said.

It should be recalled that the general inspection of the department had carried out an audit on the problematic projects and construction sites. Previously, the Court of Auditors had recorded dysfunctions in the ministry’s contracts that cost taxpayers tens of millions of dirhams.