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Weekly highlights

A Marshall Plan for urban transport

F ACED with the many pro- This will guarantee the completion of
blems encountered by ci-
all investment components and ensure
tizens in urban transport, the
Minister of the Interior could the continuity of this vitally important
service. The next stage will be to draw
not stand idly by. To meet the chal- up specifications for assistance with
lenges facing this sector, a new strate- project supervision, to support the
gy was needed to efficiently manage new model of delegated management
its various aspects. Abdelouafi Laftit contracts, and finally to draw up spe-
has drawn up an initial program for cifications for the acquisition of buses,
the 2024-2029 period. This Marshall to ensure a more appropriate choice of
Plan covers more than 32 cities, with vehicles and their owners. This will
the acquisition of a total fleet of 3,500 be achieved by issuing invitations
buses. The cost of this operation is to tender as soon as possible, giving
estimated at 10 billion Dirhams priority to the local manufacture of
(USD 10 billion). These investments buses. In parallel with this operation,
include fleet components, mainte- the Ministry of the Interior is revising
nance centers, bus depots and par- all documents relating to delegated
king facilities, ticketing systems, and management contracts in the light of
management support systems, said the new model. The department will
the Minister of the Interior during also be reviewing existing contracts,
question time in the House of Repre- «To be perfectly frank, urban transport in most Moroccan cities, with the exception of a which are experiencing a number of
sentatives on Monday. few, is not at the desired level». said Abdelouafi Laftit, during his appearance before the financial and management problems.
To implement this program, the House of Representatives. The aim is to adapt them and take all
Ministry has adopted several mea- port. Secondly, it will be necessary from the Ministry of the Interior, from necessary measures to restore budget
sures. Firstly, the need to carry out to separate the investment and mana- local authorities, as well as from inter- balance and improve services.o
preliminary studies to prepare for the gement functions, as the investment municipal cooperation bodies, grou- Mohamed CHAOUI
delegated management of bus trans- costs will be covered by contributions pings of local authorities and regions.

Illegal buildings

Less than a year to comply

I N 2019, the Government had tained from the Ministry of Housing, ting permits for repair, regularization, 2.23.103 introduced two main flexi-
As a reminder, decree no.
launched a regularization only 2,898 regularization requests or demolition. The decree provided
bility measures. The first concerns
campaign targeting illegal were filed with the relevant depart- for a two-year regularization period,
constructions except that the ments in accordance with decree no. at the end of which 51% of appli- the extension of the regularization
operation did not deliver the expected 2.18.475 of June 12, 2019 setting the cations were approved. The regula- period for non-compliant construc-
results since, according to figures ob- procedures and modalities for gran- rization process had been disrupted tions, since those concerned have a
by the coronavirus epidemic, which new 2-year period in which to apply
led to nationwide traffic restrictions for a regularization permit. The se-
until September 30, when Covid-re- cond new feature is the elimination
lated restrictions were lifted. Other of the infringement report as a pro-
constraints had made it difficult cedural hurdle. This has helped to
to bring illegal constructions into speed up the rate at which buildings
compliance, including the exclu- are brought into compliance. In fact,
sion of constructions that had been the number of requests for regulariza-
the subject of a statement of offence tion remains below the Government’s
(provided for in Article 7 of Decree targets. Many of those concerned are
no. 2.18.475), so a new decree (no. unaware of the possibility of brin-
2.23.103 of May 08, 2023) relating ging their buildings into compliance,
to the granting of permits to regula- or of the procedure involved. Other
rize non-regulatory constructions was people have tried to regularize their
published in the Official Gazette no. situation, but to no avail.
7194 of 11/05/2023. To date, 5,737 The Ministry of Housing is cur-
regularization applications have been rently finalizing a large-scale com-
submitted, in compliance with the munication campaign, which is due
conditions and rules in force in the to be launched at the national and

Caption: Illegal constructions that cannot be regularized and for which a list of irregula- field of urban planning and construc- local levels.o
rities has been drawn up are to be demolished. ( Photo by L’Economiste) tion. Of these, 37% have been appro-
ved within a one-year period. Hassan EL ARIF
Friday 31 May 2024