Aziz Akhannouch is the subject of strong criticisms due to his double cap of political leader and the main shareholder of Afriquia, leader in the local hydrocarbon market.
Le Monde with AFP
The outbreak of fuel prices in Morocco has rekindled a controversy over conflicts of interest between business and political world, exhibiting Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, oil tycoon, to lively criticism.
For the first time since the war in Ukraine, Mr. Akhannouch had to explain himself before the Parliament, last week, on the brutal increase in food and fuel prices (14 dirhams per liter of diesel at the Pump, or 1.32 euros, a record for a monthly minimum wage just over 260 euros). At the heart of the parliamentary debate: a request for ceiling on “exorbitant” margins of fuel distributors.
On the defensive, Mr. Akhannouch, a businessman having built his fortune on the distribution of hydrocarbons, described as “lies” huge profits “denounced by deputies, ensuring that they have been” almost the same since 1997 “. If his post is not threatened, the Prime Minister is on the hot seat because of his double cap of political leader and the main shareholder of Afriquia, leader on the local hydrocarbon market with Total and Shell. Under pressure, his government has released an envelope of 200 million euros in favor of road carriers in order to appease their anger.
“excessive” margins
Consumer prices (+ 3.3 % for January and February 2022 over one year) will continue to climb to “levels higher than the last decade”, warned the High Commission for Plan (HCP ). Result: the morale of Moroccan households has recorded since the beginning of the year “its lowest level since 2008”, according to the HCP.
This is not the first time that Morocco, depending on imports of hydrocarbons, crosses such a crisis, but until 2015 the State subsidized petrol and diesel to the pump. Pledge of “social peace” for decades, this subsidy was buried in 2015 due to its high cost for state funds. At the time, the government was planning to compensate for it with direct monthly financial assistance to the poorest, support that has never seen the light of day.
In 2018, three years after the liberalization of the market, a scandal broke out: in a parliamentary report, fuel distributors are accused of garner “excessive” margins, against the backdrop of denunciations of dear life on social networks . Boss of Afriquia and Minister of Agriculture, Aziz Akhannouch finds himself on the bench of the accused, personifying the collusion between the business world and the ruling class.
Seized of the case, the Competition Council concluded in July 2020 that an agreement between oil giants. Fines fall on the Afriquia, Total and Shell trio up to 9 % of their annual turnover. But, accused of irregularities in the procedure, the president of the Council, Driss Guerraoui, is dismissed by King Mohammed VI. The sanctions will not be applied.
refinery at the stop
Since liberalization, the profits of distributors have reached “more than 45 billion dirhams [4.25 billion euros] until 2021”, is indignant Hussein El Yamani, delegate of the Democratic Confederation of Labor ( Cdt).