Morocco’s Interior Minister Targets Dozens of Local Officials in Anti-Corruption Crackdown

Abdelouafi Laftit is determined to make life difficult for communal elected officials. He has referred the files of 30 commune presidents and major elected officials suspected of various violations to the judicial agent of the kingdom and has "threatened to prosecute the perpetrators of the squandering of public money among the presidents of councils, who have hastily begun to plan to benefit from the "rent" and corruption in the elected assemblies," reports Assabah. Informed of the actions of certain presidents of regions and elected assemblies in several cities, the minister has "sworn that he will spare no one," according to sources. In this sense, he intends to revitalize the role of the General Inspection of Territorial Administration after the appointment of an Inspector General, as part of the planned appointments among the senior officials of the ministry, so that the courts in charge of financial crimes prosecute the dishonest commune presidents, some of whom will be tried retroactively.

The presidents of other communes could also be prosecuted for the squandering of public funds after the conviction of several elected officials to prison sentences by the administrative courts in Rabat, Marrakech, Fez and Casablanca. It is not excluded that Laftit’s department will rely on interventions by parliamentarians in the commission of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Authorities in referring the files of certain former and current presidents to the courts of financial crimes. The judicial agent of the kingdom has already referred a list of 15 commune presidents suspected of corruption in the different regions of the country to the courts in charge of financial crimes.

It was not only the conviction of commune presidents. There were also the arrests of directors of engineering firms and companies who are accused of having taken over all the contracts with the blessing of influential personalities in the general directorate of local authorities.