Covid Special: Fund Expenditure of more than 42 billion MAD

With the resumption of the increase in the number of daily contaminations, the Special fund for the management of the Covid-19 pandemic has come to the surface, thanks to the parliamentary group of the USFP (Socialist Union of Popular Forces) in the House of Representatives, which requested and obtained clarifications concerning the management of this case. In fact, it was the response from the Ministry of Economy and Finance that provided new data. Finally, the Government, under the royal impulse, gave priority to the health of citizens since the expenses of this Fund totaled more than 42.06 billion MAD (about 4 billion USD). The distribution of this amount places support for families as a lead priority. Indeed, this decisive support consisted in the mobilization of 16 billion MAD (1.6 billion USD) . The royal instructions were clear: help populations in vulnerable and precarious situations. This is how the Economic Watch Committee (CVE) had put in place several measures as part of alleviating the negative economic impact of the pandemic. This assistance took a concrete form through the launch of a solidarity operation intended for families benefiting or not from the RAMED scheme. The goal is to preserve the purchasing power of households carrying out an activity in the informal sector and directly impacted by the sanitary lockdown. Finally, this operation was broken down into three stages and benefited 5.5 million families, 55% of them in rural areas and the rest in cities and outskirts.

Of the amount of 42 billion MAD, support for the national economy and preservation of jobs comes in second place and represented the mobilization of 8.53 billion MAD.

The vaccination campaign against Covid-19 was not left out. Indeed, since its launch in 2021 and 2022, the purchase of vaccines has cost 8.35 billion MAD. For its part, covering the expenses linked to the upgrading of hospital infrastructure required 4.6 billion MAD for the 2020-2022 period. What was urgent was to purchase medical equipment, medicines, and pharmaceutical products, as well as 1,000 resuscitation beds, 800,000 Covid test kits, 550 respirators, and a number of radiological device. 

Mohamed CHAOUI