Morocco’s incoming government faces an immediate fiscal test: it has little more than two weeks before the legal deadline for submitting the 2027 Finance Bill, much of which was prepared under Aziz Akhannouch’s outgoing administration.
Article 48 of Morocco’s Organic Finance Law requires the annual budget bill to reach the House of Representatives no later than Oct. 20. As of Sunday, Prime Minister-designate Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri was still negotiating the composition of the next governing coalition after PAM won 97 seats in the Sept. 23 election.
The outgoing government had already set the broad framework for the bill, including a 2027-2029 three-year budget program and priorities covering growth, territorial inequalities, social protection and public-finance stability.
That leaves the next cabinet with limited room to rewrite the package from scratch before filing it.
Morocco faced a similar transition in 2021. Akhannouch’s government was appointed on Oct. 7 and submitted the 2022 Finance Bill on Oct. 18, two days before the statutory deadline, after inheriting preparatory work from Saadeddine El Othmani’s administration.
The political stakes are larger this time because PAM campaigned on commitments carrying substantial multiyear costs, including changes to pensions, income taxation and direct social assistance.
El Mansouri said Friday that formal coalition negotiations would begin this week, leaving the eventual government to decide which campaign commitments can be incorporated immediately and which must wait for amendments, later budgets or separate legislation.
The Oct. 20 deadline therefore turns government formation into a budget race as well as a coalition negotiation.
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