King Mohammed VI said Friday that further delays in transferring decision-making powers, staff and financial resources from Morocco’s central administration to the regions are “unacceptable,” putting renewed pressure on a reform launched nearly eight years ago but still only partially implemented.
Opening the country’s 12th legislature, the King said shortcomings in administrative deconcentration were now holding back economic and social development programs and preventing authorities from responding effectively to citizens’ concerns.
“The real challenge for the coming period lies in fieldwork, at the local level,” he said, calling for decisions to be made closer to the specific problems facing each region.
The warning targets Morocco’s National Charter for Administrative Deconcentration, adopted in December 2018 as the administrative counterpart to advanced regionalization. The charter was designed to move substantial authority away from ministries in Rabat by giving regional state services decision-making powers, control over allocated budgets and greater responsibility for managing personnel.
In February, First President of the Court of Accounts Zineb El Adaoui told Parliament that only 36% of the charter’s implementation roadmap had been completed by the end of 2024, despite 23 ministerial deconcentration plans having been drawn up.
The Court had already warned in an earlier review that deconcentration and regionalization were supposed to advance together, with central administrations transferring both functional responsibilities and the human and material resources needed to exercise them.
During the speech, King Mohammed VI said regional institutions also need clearer competencies and greater human and material resources.
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