State aid, boomerang effect, price control, Abdelillah Hifdi says it all
The support granted by the State to road transport professionals due to the rise in fuel prices has had a boomerang effect on them, in particular international transport professionals. The National Federation of Multimodal Transport (FNTM) even called on professionals to stop work on Wednesday April 6. But the intervention of the boss of the CGEM with the supervisory authorities to “to reconcile points of view» made it possible to extract an official commitment from the Minister of Transport for the development of a bill for the indexation of the price of transport (diesel index). The details.
Despite the support given to road transport professionals to cope with soaring fuel prices, the FNTM affiliated to the CGEM had called for a strike on Wednesday 6 April. The reasons for this escalation are diverse. First of all there is the soaring fuel prices which does not stop, the non-regulation of the diesel index, problems with customers due to the increase, and the State support paid from a single blow (between 1,600 and 7,000 DH for each vehicle) and which does not follow this upward rhythm.
Thus, and after the intervention of the president of the CGEM, Chakib Alj, the Minister of Transport and Logistics, Mohamed Abdeljalil, invited the National Federation of Multimodal Transport to the dialogue on Tuesday 5 April. During the discussions, the Minister committed to drafting a bill on the indexation of transport prices to fuel prices, and submitting it to Parliament and approval procedures.
Joined by MoroccoLatestNews UKAbdelillah Hifdi, president of the FNTM and CGEM adviser to the Chamber of Councilors, explains to us why the federation called for a strike at the very beginning, when the state aid had just been paid.
“The international fleet has a specificity. Professionals are now forced to use fuel in Spain or France, but not in Morocco, because of a law that prohibits Moroccan fleets from arriving on their territory with full tanks, with a reserve of 200L of fuel only. If a vehicle arrives from Algeciras with more than 200L of reserve, it is fined up to 700 euros», explains Hifdi.
Regarding the aid provided by the State, our interlocutor deplores this payment made in “One Shot” (one shot)”before specifying that this does not even cover half of the sudden increase by professionals.
“Today, we are obliged to supply ourselves with diesel from Spain and France, where it costs 2.30 euros/L (25 DH/L). We’ve done the math a bit. Let’s take the example of the Morocco-Perpignan route in France. We noted an increase of 8000 DH of diesel. If a carrier makes three rotations per month, that’s 24,000 DH more“, explains Hifdi.
Faced with this situation, road transport professionals now believe “that they are winners when their vehicles are stationary and losers when they are moving“, says our interlocutor.
Thus, the strike called for by the Federation was more “an SOS launched by the profession vis-à-vis institutions, its environment, and vis-à-vis its clients who are turning a deaf ear to this situation», Raises the CGEM adviser to the 2nd chamber.
Still on state aid, Hifdi believes that this support has had an effect “boomerangon road transport professionals, particularly in their relations with their customers.
“When we discuss with our customers in an educational way, we try to make them aware of the current situation, they tell us that we have to lower our prices because we have received support from the State. This is why the support has had a boomerang or even devastating effect on the profession“, he observes.
The SOS of road transport professionals has therefore been heard by the supervisory authority, which has undertaken to draft a bill on the indexation of transport prices to fuel prices.
“The goal of this project is that the government, the Federation or even the CGEM no longer serve as a sounding board for the disruptions and problems that the sector experiences each time there is a rise in fuel prices. This indexing and this regulation will solve all that“, he added.
On the sidelines of the meeting with the supervisory minister on Tuesday, the problems of respecting deadlines for payment of credit maturities to financial organizations were also mentioned. A meeting will therefore be scheduled in the coming days with the Minister Delegate in charge of the Budget, Fouzi Lekjaâ, and the banking organizations (Professional Group of Banks of Morocco) in addition to the representatives of the Federation in order to find practical solutions to this problem. payment of credit maturities (leasing), confides to us the president of the FNTM.
Thus, the Ministry of Transport and the trade unions are committed to working together, and over the long term, for the restructuring and reorganization of the sector, in particular the problems linked to the informal sector, control, access to the profession, detonation, overload as well as the upgrading of players in the sector. A series of meetings will therefore take place soon to develop a common roadmap, concluded Hifdi.
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