New in the case of Russian diesel imported by certain industrial players in Morocco. The opposition formations in the House of Representatives, but without the USFP, demand, in a press release published this Friday, “the formation of a commission of inquiry in the House of Representatives on the importation of Russian diesel and the suspicions regarding the transparency, integrity and legitimacy surrounding the process”.
The presidents of the Popular Movement, PPS and PJD groups affirm that their request is “perfectly in accordance with the constitution and the organic law relating to the functioning of the parliamentary commissions of inquiry, as well as the internal regulations of the House of Representatives “. Under article 67 of the Constitution of 1 July 2011, commissions of inquiry “may be created on the initiative of the King or at the request of one third of the members of the House of Representatives, or one third of the members of the House of Councillors”.
After this official announcement, the MP, the PPS and the PJD must convince 131 deputies to sign their request. An enterprise which seems difficult when the addition of the seats of the three groups does not exceed 65 deputies, far from the threshold required by article 67 of the fundamental law. The presence of the 34 deputies of the USFP might have upset the calculations a little in favor of the opposition. The MP, the PPS, the USFP and the PJD had announced, in May 2022, the establishment of a “coordination” mechanism between them.
Defection from the USFP
An absence which is not without raising questions regarding its real motivations, while the Rose Party was the first to challenge the government chaired by the RNIiste Aziz Akhannouch on the gray areas surrounding the circumstances of the import in Morocco of Russian diesel, hit since February 5 by European Union sanctions.
As a reminder, the deputy of the USFP, Abdelkader Taher, had asked, at the end of February in a written question addressed to the Minister of Economy and Finance, Nadia Fettah Alaoui, to shed light on the allegations of “falsification of evidence of the origin of imports of petroleum products from Russia”.
Since the sanctions imposed on February 5 by the European Union on Russian refined oil exports, Morocco has become an alternative market for these products, indicated l’agence Bloomberg. The wall Street Journal has already taken an interest in the case of Morocco.
On the other hand, the Moroccan government wanted to qualify this information relayed by the international press, admitting only a slight increase in Russian diesel. “The share of Russian diesel recorded an increase in January and February 2023, to stand at 13%”, indicated the Minister of Economy and Finance in an answer to the written question of the deputy of the USFP, Abdelkader Taher. “In 2020, the import share of Russian diesel was 9%. It fell to 5% in 2021 before increasing once more to reach 9% in 2022”, said the spokesperson for the executive, Mustapha Baïtas, during a press briefing held on March 2.
