Health, family allowances… back-to-school issues

The new political year promises to be eventful. A number of issues will be in the news at the beginning of the year. One of these is pension reform, which has not budged one iota. Yet everyone agrees on the urgent need to find solutions to the problem of pension fund deficits, particularly at the Moroccan pension fund Caisse Marocaine des Retraites (CMR), especially as the Head of Government had set a deadline of June 2022 for the reform to be implemented.

Aziz Akhannouch had entrusted Nadia Fettah, Minister of Economy and Finance, with the mission of bringing this strategic project to a successful conclusion. More than 14 months after this deadline, the project is at a standstill. As of today, there is still no visibility on the horizon.

On the back-to-school front, several million pupils returned to school on Monday. This is the second new school year without the new unified status of teachers, promised by the Head of Government and his Minister of Education as the key to resolving the problem of contract teachers. This dossier was also due to be completed by July 2022. More than a year after this missed appointment, Chakib Benmoussa continues to meet the trade unions, without succeeding in finalizing this famous statute.

With regard to the health sector, all eyes will be focused on Health Minister Khalid Ait Taleb for the decrees implementing the numerous laws adopted and relating to the reform of the health sector, decrees necessary for the generalization of social protection. The task now is to put these laws and regulations into practice.

As far as the generalization of family allowances is concerned, it will take place before the end of the year. The aim is to enable families who have been deprived of these benefits to enjoy them. This operation will target nearly 7 million school-age children. These allowances will be given to families with children, but also to vulnerable families who have none, or whose children are over the school-leaving age of 21.

Another pending issue is direct housing assistance, for which the legislation has been eagerly awaited since the end of the support mechanism for social housing, as has the announcement of its replacement by a new scheme by the current Government, Since then, however, no details of the new policy to promote access to home ownership, particularly for social categories, have been announced. According to the Minister in charge, the decree is in the hands of the General Secretariat of the Government.

    Mohamed CHAOUI