Rabat - The current situation of public finances in Morocco does not allow salary increase as this would entail serious burden on state budget, Government chief Abdelilah Benkirane said on Tuesday.
Rabat – The current situation of public finances in Morocco does not allow salary increase as this would entail serious burden on state budget, Government chief Abdelilah Benkirane said on Tuesday.
In an answer to a question at the Lower House on social dialogue, Benkirane said that the demands of the main labour unions are “not adapted to the current economic environment.”
After recalling that Morocco went through a difficult economic situation marked by a rise in budget deficit and debt as well as a deficit in trade balance and a drop in foreign exchange reserves, Benkirane said that the government undertook considerable efforts to address those challenges notably by contracting the budget deficit from 7% in 2012 to 4.9% last year.
He said that the volume of debt and the increase in the public sector’s payroll are still putting pressure on public finances, which stresses the need of an adjustment of Morocco’s public expenditures and the improvement of financial balances.
In this regards, the Head of the Government criticized the trade and labor unions for their demands of 25% salary increase for public sector employees saying that this would require the allocation of 27 billion dirhams annually, an equivalent of 3% of GDP.
