The King’s appointments are part of the government's plan for MAD 10 billion worth of privatizations.
Rabat – King Mohammed VI appointed Zouhair Chorfi, Mohamed Sadiqi, Khalid Safir, Mounia Boucetta, and Fouzia Zaaboul to the government’s transfer commission for privatization on Monday. The names of the members appeared in the Official Bulletin No. 6773.
The King chose the members based on their competence in financial, economic, and social matters.
The role of the five-person transfer commission is to assist the minister of finance, Mohamed Benchaaboun, in transfers and privatizing state-owned entities. The members are expected to give their opinions on privatization operations, especially in light of new regulatory provisions.
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The King also appointed Abdellatif Jouahari, Ahmed Reda Chami, Mohamed Amine Banhalima, Hassan Boubrik, Amina Benkhadra, Ghizland Guedria, and Dia Oudghiri to the evaluation body. Jouahari will act as president of the body and Chami as vice-president.
The evaluation body will take note of the valuation report issued by the minister responsible for the transfer as well as the offer price of the participant. The minister of finance is expected to seek the opinion of this body to set the terms of direct attribution.
The appointments are part of the government’s plan to carry out MAD 10 billion (approximately $1 billion) worth of privatizations in 2019. The estimated revenue from privatization is MAD 5 billion ($518 million), which will go to the general budget.
The main goal of the privatizations is to reduce Morocco’s annual budget deficit which currently stands at 3.7% of GDP. The government also hopes to initiate a new strategy for managing the state’s portfolio. The hope is that privatization will modernize the national economy, increase the share of foreign direct investment, improve the industrial and financial returns of companies, and increase job-creating investments.
The privatization plan involves opening up the capital of some public enterprises which are operating in competitive sectors. The second aspect of the plan is transforming certain public establishments which have commercial characteristics into public limited companies to eventually introduce them to the stock market. This was the case for Maroc Telecom and Marsa Maroc.
In January, Parliament passed Law 91.18 which added La Mamounia Hotel and the Tahaddart Thermal Power Plant to the list of companies the state could privatize. Although they have been added, the companies will not necessarily be sold in 2019 because the government seems to want to remain flexible.
