Opposition MPs slam government over rising fuel prices
The opposition criticized the head of government, Aziz Akhannouch, because of the increases in the rise in fuel prices and a number of raw materials, Monday, April 18, 2022, during the monthly session devoted to government policy relating to the crisis.
Abderrahim Chahid, leader of the Socialist parliamentary group in the House of Representatives, said during a prime minister’s questioning session on Monday that the government is adopting “the policy of the ostrich and not taking serious and proactive to reduce the social burden on Moroccan families, and to deal with the high prices of raw materials and fuel”.
The opposition parliamentarian called on the government to “solve the problems, not justify them. As well as keeping electoral promises and placing the interest of the nation above all considerations”.
Chahid stressed that “honest political practice requires that the government actor be at the service of the citizen and not at the service of the clients”, and considered that “communication and interaction with public opinion is a fundamental necessity”.
The leader of the socialist parliamentary team questions the government on “the feasibility of the policy of dams and the Green Morocco Plan after half a century of the launch of these strategies. And if these programs were able to provide the necessary national stock relating to water and food”.
In this sense, Chahid also warned the government, “to remedy the flaws in the methodology of its work, and to take into account the expectations and recommendations of national institutions”.
Mohammed Ouzzine, parliamentarian from the Haraki group, said the government’s measures are useless and have no effect. “Why are you hesitant to cap prices after covering ages, or at least revise fuel pricing by looking at profit margins with the aim of temporarily reducing them? “, he asks Aziz Akhannouch.
Ouzzine added that “the fuel price crisis is the responsibility of previous and current governments”, and pointed out that not exploiting Samir’s reservoirs during the health crisis when a barrel of oil was in the order of $20. This is what wasted the opportunity for a saving of 7 billion dirhams”.
The parliamentarian from the Haraki group criticized a number of programs launched by the government; among them, “Awrach”, who considered that it was a re-experiment of the “National Promotion” program. He questioned the results that could come from these programs.
The spokesperson criticized the government for its use of virtual influencers, and added: “This means that we are facing a hypothetical government which has chosen to replace institutional Morocco with a virtual Morocco, since it has allocated a quarter of the 1.25 billion dirhams of the “Forsa” program for advertising in the midst of the crisis”
For his part, Abdellah Bouanou, from the parliamentary group of the Justice and Development Party in the House of Representatives, declared in his response to the head of government that “the rise in fuel prices is unjustified”, adding that this has a impact on transport, cost of production and services, inflation, unemployment, crime and theft.
Bouanou also called for capping the profit margins of oil companies and gradually capping prices, on the horizon of completing the institutional and legal liberalization of their prices after overcoming the current economic situation.
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