Rabat- It seems that the war between the Benkirane Government and the High Commission for Planning (HCP) will not cease any time soon.
Sources quoted by daily Al Massae in its Monday, January 27th issue, revealed that powerful voices within the governmental coalition are pushing towards overthrowing HCP boss Ahmed Lahlimi Alami whose recent figures and his gloomy forecast in his predictions regarding the state of the economy did not please the PJD-led government.
The same sources added that these powerful voices inside the Benkirane cabinet suggested transforming the High Commission for Planning, a constitutional institution, into a directorate subordinate to the Ministry of Economy and Finance in charge of planning and statistics.
This move aims to avoid any future figures released by the HCP that will do harm to the government and its image in the eyes of international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Other sources, however, suggested working around the proposed constitutional challenges if the government were to attempt a transformation of the HCP into a directorate and appoint a technocrat director on top of the HCP instead of Lahlimi whose socialist background is believed to be responsible of the Commission’s recent figures.
The same sources went on to add that an IMF committee will arrive in Morocco in the coming days in order to address the recent figures released by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the HCP about growth rates, the deficit, and unemployment.
The paper’s sources said that the International Monetary Fund is following with deep concern the “war of figures” between the government and the HCP. The war erupted last week in the wake of Lahlimi’s figures, which predicted that the growth rate will decline in 2014 to about 2.4 % and that the budget deficit has stabilized during 2013 at 6%.
The government’s responded as soon as the HCP figures were released by publishing a statement which said that the budget deficit in 2013 had stabilized at 5.4% not 6%, as Lahlimi’s HCP has claimed.
Controversial deputy Minister in charge of General Affairs and Governance, Mohamed El Ouafa also intervened in the “war of figures” by describing Lahlimi’s figures as both childish and medieval.
Edited by Matthew Osborn