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Weekly highlights

Restructuring of the public portfolio under way

A new step has been taken in the of social actions instead of the many
existing public establishments. Terri-
restructuring of the public port-
torial development is not left out. The
folio. The Ministry of Economy
and Finance has just launched a call ministry proposes the dissolution of
for candidates to fill the position of the three development agencies of the
Director of the Department of Public South, North, and Oriental regions.
Establishments and Privatization Their maintenance is no longer justi-
(DEPP), which will be vacant from fied because of duplication either with
the end of next November. other public establishments or with
The main mission of the new direc- For the Ministry of Finance, it is imperative to merge the Social Development Agency, the National departments and local authorities.
tor consists in initiating the reform of Mutual Aid agency (Entraide Nationale), the ODCO (Cooperation Development Office), and the All these elements confirm that a
Compensation Fund into a single operator. The idea is to create a single and visible entity in charge of
the public sector, a fundamental work social actions instead of the many existing public establishments restructuring of the sector is impe-
mentioned in a royal speech. The rative. For it, several actions will be
new director will have to establish the the design stage of its strategic deve- fessionalize the governance of SOEs. taken. Indeed, for non-commercial
necessary synergy with the National lopment vision aiming at making Added to this is the drastic limita- and social SOEs, it will be necessary
Agency for the Strategic Management this project operational. This work tion of recourse to the Government to carry out the reintegration of cer-
of State Holdings and for Monitoring is carried out in parallel with the fra- budget, the need to make the models tain missions within the ministries
the Performance of Public Institutions mework law relating to the restruc- reliable, and the emergence of large concerned, after the liquidation of
and State-Owned Enterprises. Last turing of the public portfolio, which centers with the capacities required certain establishments whose mainte-
July, the King appointed Abdellatif includes a roadmap. What is planned to face the challenges related to com- nance is no longer necessary, under-
Zaghnoun as the first director general is the establishment of an integrated petition. lined an official within the Ministry
of this new public agency that he is program of reform of the sector of the For the ministry, it is imperative to of Finance. Moreover, the roadmap
setting up. The former boss of CDG State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) of merge the Social Development Agen- proposes to group together certain
(Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion) em- which a portion is qualified as urgent. cy, the National Mutual Aid Agency establishments whose maintenance
barked on the implementation, in par- This program will be built on the (“Entraide Nationale” ), the ODCO is justified. Examples of contempla-
ticular by recruiting human resources basis of the overhaul measures, defi- (Cooperation Development Office), ted transactions are provided. This is
and drawing up the budget necessary ned by the framework law, the aims and the Compensation Fund into a the case of the infrastructure sector in
for the operation of this new entity. of which are to resize the public port- single operator. The idea is to create transport and logistics. o
For the time being, the Agency is at folio, strengthen efficiency and pro- a single and visible entity in charge Mohamed CHAOUI
Social Security pensions: The increase finally granted

M ORE than two years after of the beneficiaries have a pension ther measure contemplated is the date to be discussed during the social
its validation, the increase
of 4,200 MAD, which corresponds reduction of the number of days of dialogue. This session of the CNSS
in retirement pensions from
the CNSS (National Social Security to the maximum granted by this contributions so that a person can be Board of Directors meeting made it
scheme. Contributions are made eligible to claim a CNSS pension. possible to take stock of the CNSS’s
Agency) has finally been released by on the basis of a salary capped at This provision was validated during balance sheet in 2021, namely the
the Ministry of Finance. The govern- 6,000 MAD per month, which has the social dialogue session held last increase in the number of declared
ment is getting ready to implement, been unchanged for several years. April. The minimum number of days employees to 3.49 million (+5.4%)
via a decree, this recommendation of This increase, which was the sub- required to claim a pension should and the number of businesses affi-
the Board of Directors of the fund, ject of lively increase to liated to Social Security to 294,000
which dates from 2019. The five discussions 1,320 days reporting companies (+8.7%). The
percent increase will apply to the during the It will give a small boost to versus 3,240 declared payroll increased by 13% to
stock of retirees constituted at the Board mee- the purchasing power, enough days today. A 170 billion dirhams while collection
end of December 2019 with retroac- ting, will cost large segment rates improved to 92% in 2021 ver-
tive effect since January 2020. The nearly 780 to deal with the general rise of employees sus 80% in 2020. These issues which
increase will result in a minimum in- million MAD in prices could benefit deserve in-depth analysis were also
crease of 100 MAD and a maximum per year to from a pen- raised, as is the case for the distribu-
of 210 MAD per insured person. At CNSS, and at sion whereas tion of costs related to recruitment or
the time, this measure was blocked the end of September (if the decree until then they had only one alter- investment in new branches between
because it was necessary to wait is published), the National Social Se- native, namely, to recover the em- the different categories managed by
for the reform of the CNSS pen- curity Agency will have to disburse ployees’ share. Employees who do CNSS. Another issue is that of the
sion scheme, which is slow to come more than 2 billion MAD. This will not reach the level of 1,320 days surpluses of 41 billion MAD, made
into being. This increase will give a have an impact on the balance of the could recover the employer’s and by the compulsory health insurance
small boost to the purchasing power, pension scheme. Some administra- employee’s share. The terms of im- of employees. “ The idea, among
enough to deal with the general rise tors speak of the deficit “that would plementation of this system have not other things, consists in allocating
in prices. Today more than seven occur three or six months before yet been defined and are the subject part (of the surplus) to the financing
CNSS pensioners out of ten (senior what was initially forecast”, a situa- of disagreement between the admi- of the “Family allowance” branch
citizens, disabled persons, and bene- tion that underscores the urgency nistrators of the National Social or even to long-term benefits”, says
ficiaries of the survivors’ allowance) of a reform. However, despite the Security Agency. As a result, said an administrator. o
receive less than 2,000 MAD (200 studies and diagnoses carried out, terms of implementation of this sys- Khadija MASMOUDI
USD) per month. Only four percent no decision has been made. Ano- tem would be postponed to a later
Friday 16 September 2022