Pension reform: A stimulus without timetable or direction
Weeks go by, deficits grow, but pension reform still makes no headway. On Monday June 16, during Question Time in the House of Representatives, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Nadia Fettah, tried to contain the criticism by announcing that a meeting of the National Pensions Commission would be held soon. No precise deadline, no detailed measures: a signal which, far from reassuring, fuelled a little more doubt.
At a time when the indicators are turning red, with technical imbalances, gradually depleting reserves and a declining ratio of contributors to retirees, the executive continues to favor a cautious approach, deferring to future consultations what requires structural decisions. For some members of parliament, the time for diagnosis has passed, and the time for political arbitration has come.
The criticisms, which are now transversal, converge on one point: the Government is backing away from the scale of the task. MP Mustapha Ibrahimi (PJD) denounced the government’s “irresponsible wait-and-see attitude”, pointing to the growing precariousness of pensioners and persistent inertia in the face of the threat of collapse of the funds. He pointed out that the royal commitments, in particular that of extending retirement benefits to five million self-employed workers and the liberal professions, remained unfulfilled to date.
MP El Batoul Abladi (PJD group) criticized the Government for failing to honor promises made in October and December 2024, then in January 2025, on the gradual implementation of the reform. “You’re still talking about upcoming consultations, when the urgency has been there for a long time ”, she said.
She called for a clear political inflexion. «This crisis cannot be resolved with slogans or symbolic dialogues. We need courage, responsibility and strong choices», she insisted. She added: “You talk about the success of social dialogue, but on the ground, strikes are multiplying”.
The figures she puts forward are striking: over 5 million Moroccans have no pension entitlement, 80% of pensioners receive between 1,000 and 3,000 dirhams a month, while eight million citizens are excluded from direct social support. Added to this is the demographic alert: according to the 2024 census, the senior population will increase by 10% by 2030, putting further pressure on schemes already under strain.
The data provided to MPs as part of the budget discussions confirms this diagnosis. In 2023, the schemes collected 88.2 billion dirhams (USD 8.8 billion) in contributions, but paid out 91.7 billion (USD 9.1 billion) in benefits. The technical deficit of the civil scheme (Caisse Marocaine des Retraites, CMR) reached 9.9 billion dirhams (USD 900 million), compared with 6.5 billion (USD 650 million) the previous year. Reserves are dwindling, while the ratio of contributors to retirees is deteriorating. RCAR, for example, has a ratio of 1.3.
The Caisse Nationale de Securite Sociale (CNSS) remains better off for the time being, with a ratio of 7.46 contributors to one retiree in 2023. But the trend is towards erosion. Even the CIMR, backed by solid reserves and a ratio of 2.92, is beginning to see the burden of benefits eat into its margins.
Khadija Masmoudi
