After two months of a nationwide lockdown, Morocco is set to lift its state of emergency on May 20.
Rabat – The Moroccan government is expected to present its post-lockdown strategy on Monday, May 18, two days before the scheduled lift of the nationwide lockdown.
Morocco’s Head of Government Saad Eddine El Othmani is set to take part in May’s monthly session at the House of Representatives to answer all the deputies’ questions about the country’s state of emergency and how the government plans to lift it.
The House of Representatives decided on the meeting’s date on Tuesday, May 5, House of Representatives President Habib El Malki announced in a statement.
Until the monthly session, the Moroccan Parliament will continue to hold weekly meetings devoted to oral questions to members of the Moroccan government. The questions primarily concern the state of emergency and the different measures the government has implemented to curb the pandemic’s spread and mitigate its impact on the economy and society.
The upcoming weekly session, planned for Monday, May 11, will include questions to the Minister of Industry and Trade, Moulay Hafid Elalamy, about the crisis’s impact on Moroccan businesses and on the country’s internal and external trades.
Participants in the session are also set to discuss Morocco’s Industrial Acceleration Plan and whether the COVID-19 crisis will affect the reachability of the plan’s objectives.
Morocco declared a state of health emergency on March 19 and implemented it on March 20 to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
The state of emergency means a ban on all unnecessary travel of citizens, both inside cities and between them. Citizens are only allowed to go out for grocery shopping, essential work, or medical emergencies.
Initially scheduled to end on April 20, the Moroccan government decided to extend the state of emergency until May 20 due to the continuous increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country.
With less than two weeks before its scheduled end, it remains to be seen whether the Moroccan government believes the country is ready to lift the lockdown or will opt for a new extension.
As of 10 a.m. on May 7, Morocco has recorded 5,505 COVID-19 cases, including 2,124 recoveries and 183 deaths.
