Morocco Loses $1 Billion Annually to Illegal Capital Flight, Lawmakers Demand Action

Morocco loses annually some 12 billion dirhams in foreign exchange, or nearly a billion dollars, which illegally leave the kingdom. Taking advantage of the monthly session of general policy questions in the second Chamber, the parliamentary group of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) which raised this concern, did not spare the government, holding it responsible for this enormous loss of revenue. For the PAM, the Executive has failed in its mission of "fighting corruption", yet brandished as a slogan at the beginning of its term, reports the daily Assabah.

More virulent on the issue, the advisers of the Party of Justice and Development (PJD) have disavowed the government which boasts of the "small cases that amount to 40, 50 or 60,000 dirhams, which have become commonplace", instead of tackling those involving hundreds of millions, even billions of dirhams. The parliamentary advisers of the PAM also pointed to the problem of the informal sector, which causes a loss of some 42 billion dirhams each year. For its part, the opposition blames the government for having granted in particular "a tax amnesty to holders of undeclared cash, according to the terms of articles 8 and 9 of the current Finance Act".

Furthermore, to drive the point home, the parliamentary group of the CGEM notes, for its part, that the World Bank reports, particularly that of 2019, place Morocco in an uncomfortable position with regard to the fight against corruption. A phenomenon which, it supports, causes the State to lose nearly 50 billion dirhams