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Rabat — Morocco’s parliament has refused to back down from its explosive allegations about conflicts of interest in the country’s pharmaceutical sector.
During a heated parliamentary session today at the House of Representatives’ social sectors committee meeting, the head of the Justice and Development Party’s parliamentary group Abdellah Bouano half-heartedly apologized to the Health Minister as he held his ground regarding the accusations.
“I apologize to you, Mr. Health Minister — you have no luck with me. You came to the wrong place at the wrong time,” Bouano told the minister.
He commended the minister’s achievements in his former position in the Agriculture Ministry, particularly in fisheries, expressing hope he would leave his mark on the Health Ministry as well.
But Bouano’s polite tone couldn’t mask the seriousness of his charges. While the minister has left companies where he held shares and no longer has duties there, he revealed, the pharmaceutical company at the center of the controversy is managed by the minister’s brother as general director.
The minister’s wife and daughter still hold shares in the company, Bouano added.
“We have no problem with businessmen, but they must respect the law,” Bouano said, noting that previous governments under Karim Ghellab, Driss Jettou, and even Saad Eddine El Othmani included businessmen without such severe conflicts of interest.
Bouano’s parliamentary group conducted research through the public procurement portal that revealed damning figures. Their investigation concluded that, in 2025 alone, the pharmaceutical company linked to the minister secured contracts worth MAD 32 million ($3.45 million). In addition, noted the investigation, the company secured an additional MAD 8 to 50 million ($864,981 to $5.4 million) with university hospitals in the same year.
“I still stand by my statement from the budget discussion session on November 13, 2025 — that the minister benefited from the deal,” Bouano said. He dismissed both the ministry’s statement issued that same day and the presentations by the Health Minister and Director General of the Drug and Health Products Agency as failing to provide satisfactory answers.
Bouano renewed his demand for a fact-finding commission, saying it would either condemn him personally if he made a mistake or vindicate him if his claims prove correct.
“We respect and value the judiciary, but we requested a fact-finding commission on this matter,” the opposition MP said. “Any other party entering the issue, we consider it a diminishment of parliament’s duties.”
The opposition’s persistence comes as drug prices squeeze most Moroccan families to breaking point. Idriss Sentissi, head of the Popular Movement Party, revealed that high medicine costs have forced some families to open “credit accounts” at pharmacies — buying medications on installment plans because they can’t afford to pay upfront.
Sentissi pointed to multiple intermediaries between importers and pharmacies, arguing that reducing the profit margins these middlemen collect requires a political decision. He stressed that questions about conflicts of interest in the pharmaceutical sector are legitimate concerns raised naturally, “not based on ulterior motives or ready-made accusations.”
“Any minister has the right to manufacture cars or medicine in Morocco,” Sentissi said. “But what they don’t have the right to do is ‘measure public money’” — a pointed reference to benefiting from state contracts.
The Popular Movement leader outlined a litany of problems plaguing Morocco’s pharmaceutical sector, including that strategic medicine stockpiles should reach 30% according to current regulations but fall short, adding that delays in marketing authorizations create long waiting periods that affect drug access.
Sentissi also pointed to massive price disparities that persist despite the ministry announcing price reductions on 319 medicines, in addition to medical products being sold outside legal channels, with “cartons full of quasi-medical materials” sold on installment plans.
Health minister responds
However, Morocco’s Minister of Health Amine Tahraoui dismissed the opposition’s accusations of irregularities in the acquisition of medicines. He asserted that the ministry “is not hiding anything” and operates in a manner that is “clear and transparent.”
Tahraoui said that institutional discussion within the committee is the “healthy and natural framework” for addressing concerns related to the health system, including monitoring public contracts, reviewing exceptional licenses, and responding to claims of conflict of interest.
