Marrakech – Morocco’s Head of Government, Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, pledged to criminalize illicit enrichment and penalize conflicts of interest, placing the fight against corruption at the center of her government’s agenda for the 2026-2031 term.
El Mansouri made the commitment on Monday while presenting the government program before both chambers of parliament, in line with Article 88 of the Constitution. The program, she told lawmakers, is a political and institutional contract drawn from the royal confidence vested in her and from the will expressed by citizens in the September 23 elections.
She organized the program around seven integrated priorities, with the fight against corruption and rent-seeking ranking second. For El Mansouri, the stakes tie directly to public confidence. “Institutions will not restore trust without an effective fight against corruption and conflicts of interest,” she told parliament.
At the core of the pledge is a plan to complete what she called the national integrity system. The government will work “to complete the national integrity system, particularly by criminalizing illicit enrichment, punishing conflicts of interest in accordance with Article 36 of the Constitution, strengthening the mandatory declaration of assets, and criminalizing the leaking of information to obtain privileges,” she stated.
Article 36 provides the constitutional basis for that agenda. It stipulates that conflicts of interest, insider dealing, and all financial offenses are punishable by law, and it obliges public authorities to prevent and punish misconduct tied to the work of public administrations, the use of public funds, and the awarding and management of public contracts.
The same article sanctions influence peddling and the trading of privileges, the abuse of a dominant position and monopoly, and other practices that run counter to free and fair competition, and it establishes a National Authority for Probity and the Fight against Corruption.
El Mansouri linked the integrity drive to the way markets operate. The government, she announced, will launch “a structural reform to organize markets and combat monopoly and opportunistic brokerage,” through a dedicated mechanism and appropriate means, in coordination with the Competition Council.
Public procurement forms another part of the plan. El Mansouri committed to mechanisms “to scrutinize public contracts and investigate collusion in tenders,” while turning public orders into a lever for production and inclusion. As part of that shift, contract holders will be legally required to allocate 30% of the value of their deals to Moroccan small and medium-sized enterprises.
The anti-corruption measures sit within a broader effort to rebuild trust in public institutions. El Mansouri cast the consolidation of the rule of law, institutions, democratic practice, and the culture of rights and freedoms as “a fundamental condition for rebuilding trust in public work, and in political life in general.”
She connected that confidence to institutional presence, positive engagement with the opposition’s constructive proposals, and stronger citizen participation.
El Mansouri framed the entire push as part of a drive to strengthen integrity and transparency and to anchor the principles of good governance and the link between responsibility and accountability.
Citizens’ trust in institutions, by her account, remains contingent on concrete measures against corruption and conflicts of interest, and on completing the legal and institutional framework tied to probity.
