Morocco’s Finance Minister Slams Decade of Islamist Party’s Economic Policies

"For ten years, our country has not made progress commensurate with its capacities. Our situation would have been better if we had greater immunity to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. Government policies over the past ten years have led to economic and social failures, which have wiped out the gains made previously and have been an obstacle to development instead of being the driving force," denounced the minister.

Even if the crisis related to the coronavirus is unprecedented, she believes that it alone does not explain all the economic and social problems and must not be an excuse to hide pre-Covid crises, or justify dysfunctions accumulated over 10 years. After delivering this severe indictment against the governments led by the PJD, Nadia Fettah assured that the current executive wants to change the paradigm through the 2022 Finance Bill (PLF). The PLF aims to respond to the fundamental expectations of citizens in terms of health, education and employment, to revive private investment, to support the national company and encourage it to create employment opportunities and to continue to support public investment.

"The government wants to mobilize the efforts and collective intelligence of all the driving forces to face these negative accumulations and propose alternatives that will meet the expectations of citizens and solve their problems," she said, adding that the new executive is determined to make the 2022 PLF a starting point for the implementation of its program, which draws its orientations and priorities from the royal speeches and whose components are in harmony with the conclusions of the report on the New Development Model".

Concretely, the current government led by Aziz Akhannouch, boss of the Rally of Independents (RNI), intends to create 250,000 direct jobs in 2022 and 2023, for a total envelope of 2.25 billion dirhams, to give new momentum to the "Intelaka" program and launch "Forsa" for 1.25 billion dirhams, to inject 9 billion dirhams into the health sector, including 5 billion dirhams for infrastructure and to mobilize public investment of 245 billion dirhams, including the financing of the Mohammed VI Fund for Investment.