Transport sector: Indexation, soon? | L’Economiste

Minister Mohamed Abdeljalil announced that the draft law relating to the indexation of road transport prices to those of fuel, sent to the ministerial departments, is on the right track. The Minister of Transport and Logistics has prepared a first version which he is in the process of sharing with the other ministerial departments. This draft legislation will soon be distributed to professionals for their opinion. The text will then be included in the adoption procedure which begins with the programming of the bill on the menu of a Government Council and its adoption by the two Chambers of Parliament.

Obviously, the work of this department is marked by a slowness which does not say its name, because, last April, the minister had announced that his department was in the process of drawing up a bill relating to indexation. Seven months later, the bill is at the level of the ministerial departments. However, the draft legislation involves only long-term contracts for the carriage of goods. At this level, the carrier and its customer are bound by a long-term contract and are required to adapt their prices to fuel prices on the market, in the event that their agreement does not provide for this. The draft law aims to commit the carrier and the shipper to revising the transport tariffs when the fuel prices change between the date of the agreement on the price of transport and that of the service, and this in the event that there is a transport contract between the two parties containing provisions on the revision of transport prices to peg the increases or decreases to the fuel prices. In this case, the provisions of this contract will be applied. As a reminder, this text aims to strengthen the transport system and provide professionals with a legal mechanism to help them adapt to fluctuations in the prices of these products on the market. In the absence of this contract, the draft law provides for the application of the provisions relating to the indexation between the price of transport and the price of fuel.

While waiting to adopt the text, the government has decided to support road transport companies through direct support. The group of representatives of Moroccan employers (CGEM) in the House of Councillors welcomes this initiative, but in reality, this support has exposed certain deficits, because, for one of the councillors, the agreement made provides that direct support is only a step and an introduction to the implementation of the indexation system, through a bill that the supervisory ministry was to prepare. For him, “indexation brings transparency to contractual relations. It is a system which reflects the fluctuations in the price of diesel, the rise or fall in the level of the pricing in force. (This system) introduces serenity into contractual relations”. And therefore, competitiveness requires that “Moroccan carriers benefit from tax advantages like their foreign counterparts in their countries with the system of professional diesel and VAT applied to fuels”.

Mohamed CHAOUI