Rabat’s Billion-Dollar Makeover: Ambitious Projects Face Maintenance Challenges

According to L’économiste, on the ground, these projects, carried out at the cost of several billion, do not benefit from any professional management capable of ensuring their maintenance and preservation. This is the case in particular of sports fields, gardens and urban real estate.

Cited by the media, the Société, Rabat Animation and Development, which has inherited the management of the sites, stated: "Thanks to ’Rabat, city of light’, the capital has been endowed with about a hundred local sports fields, of which nearly 50% are dedicated to football, the rest to various sports disciplines".

However, indicates the same source, "about fifteen football pitches, in the absence of regular maintenance, are gradually deteriorating".

In reality, the Société, Rabat Animation and Development, is limited in its prerogatives and lacks resources. "We do not have either a budget or the skills to carry out the renovation of the grass carpets and the fencing of the deteriorated pitches," one of its managers confided to L’économiste.

The manager also specifies that "the revenue generated by the operation of these stadiums remains limited, not allowing renovation work to be carried out". In addition to all these difficulties, the media points to the lack of professional management of the stadiums.

Among others, the Al Karma park and certain sites located at the level of the Corniche and in the neighborhoods of Yakoub Al Mansour and Youssoufia, which are suffering from advanced deterioration, are cited as examples, to sound the alarm, in order to provoke the reaction of the competent authorities.