The House of Advisors approves the 2022 Liquidation Bill.. Details

Agadir24 | Agadir24/A.M.E

The House of Advisors approved, during a legislative session held yesterday, Tuesday, July 17, 2024, by majority, the liquidation bill No. 09.24 related to the implementation of the Finance Law for the fiscal year 2022.

The draft law was supported by 37 parliamentary advisors, while three advisors opposed it, and three others abstained from voting.

In an introductory speech to the draft law, the Minister Delegate to the Head of Government, in charge of Relations with Parliament, Government Spokesman, Mustapha Baitas, stressed that the provisions of this text aim to “fix the final results of the implementation of the 2022 Finance Law, which is the first finance law of this government,” noting “the exceptional circumstances in which this law was implemented, which were mainly characterized by successive crises and increasing geopolitical tensions at the international level, which had a negative impact on the growth of the global economy, which did not exceed 3.5 percent, and on purchasing power in various parts of the world.”

The government official added that the national context was also marked by “a drought season considered among the most severe in the last four decades, during which the highest annual inflation rate in more than thirty years was recorded, reaching 6.6 percent.”

Mr. Baitas stressed that the government, under the insightful and wise leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, has succeeded in confronting these pressures, managing the successive crises associated with them, and limiting their economic and social repercussions, through adopting effective policies based on two main complementary dimensions: the first of which is proactive and urgent, and is based on confronting these circumstantial constraints through immediate intervention to mitigate their direct repercussions on the national economy and on the daily living standards of citizens, and the second is structural and long-term, and aims to continue implementing the major strategic reforms necessary to achieve comprehensive development.

In this context, Mr. Baitas stated that the government has mobilized the necessary resources to finance various expenses related to the measures, namely mobilizing 40 billion dirhams to cover exceptional expenses, which were not scheduled in the 2022 Finance Law in order to support citizens’ purchasing power, such as subsidizing the prices of basic commodities, electricity, and transportation related to goods and people, and mobilizing 19 billion dirhams to pay tax payments.

The Minister stated that investment expenditure issues under the general budget amounted to regarding 96 billion dirhams, an increase of 14 billion dirhams compared to 2021. While investment issues in 2022 reached their record level, at 83 percent.

He stressed that the government was keen to maintain the sustainability of public finances by reducing the budget deficit from 7.1 percent in 2020 to 5.5 percent in 2021, and then to 5.4 percent in 2022, “which are exceptional results given the extent of the pressures faced.”

The Minister Delegate considered that the achievement of these achievements was contributed to by the positive dynamics recorded in the collection of regular resources, which increased by more than 45 billion dirhams, equivalent to an increase estimated at 17.3 percent compared to the year 2021, thanks to the increase in tax resources by an estimated 38 billion dirhams, i.e. an achievement rate of 113 percent compared to the expectations of the Finance Law.