The negative repercussions of quarries management exceed 900 million dirhams annually

The parliamentary report on the temporary fact-finding mission on sand and marble quarries revealed a number of irregularities affecting this vital sector.

In the report, the conclusions of which were announced during the meeting of the Committee on Infrastructure, Energy, Minerals and Environment, on Tuesday, the parliamentarians recommended accelerating the development of plans for managing quarries at the level of each region, and working to ensure coordination, harmony and synergy between them and other documents, such as the guiding framework for the general policy for the development of the national territory, the regional designs for the development of the national territory, the development programme for prefectures and regions, the work programme for communities, the national coastal plan, the regional coastal designs, and other related plans.

In their recommendations, the representatives also called for the development of an “urgent plan to limit the negative repercussions of this sector on the state’s financial revenues, which exceed 900 million dirhams annually, as well as the remainder to be extracted for groups and the entitlements of dynastic groups,” and they emphasized the trend towards establishing “a kind of balance between the dual Fundamental, related to the financial returns of the state, groups, dynasties, the exploiter, and the citizen on the one hand, and between economic necessity, social development, and environmental balance on the other hand.”

In the report, a copy of which was obtained by Hespress, the representatives recommended “strengthening the comprehensive system of governance in terms of transparency, free and fair competition, and clarity and safety in all procedures related to the sector,” in addition to putting an end to the “dangerous manifestations of rent-seeking in its various manifestations (the Ould Sakhar coast in Larache as an example, where The coastal sands have been exploiting the same region since 1993, and the trend is towards adopting competitiveness and professionalism in the sector.”

The report of the fact-finding mission stressed the importance of reviewing the legislative and regulatory texts related to quarries and moving towards preventing monopoly through them. It also recommended that the administrative interests and institutions concerned with enforcing the law in the quarries sector, in connection with their multiplicity and failure to accomplish their tasks in the best possible way and the conflicting information provided by them on many occasions, “assume their responsibilities regarding what is currently happening in the sector, especially since all the parties involved acknowledge the imbalances and problems occurring in it.”

In a recommendation that appeared remarkable in the report, the representatives demanded the provision of “the necessary protection for men of authority, executives, and employees who move to carry out their supervisory duties and are subjected to various attacks by criminal gangs specialized in plundering sand.” They also stressed the development of a public policy that takes into account “the triad of development, entrepreneurship, and the citizen, and aims to Rationalizing and rationalizing the exploitation of quarry materials and ensuring their sustainability, preserving the environment and having a positive impact on social development and progress.”

The parliamentary report highlighted the need to eliminate “random practices in the management of quarries, and put an end to the monopoly prevailing in this field on the coast of the Larache region, the gassoul quarries in the Boulemane region, and in the rest of the Kingdom.” It also urged the establishment of “an urgent solution to the gassoul quarries file, and the need to adopt a comprehensive and integrated approach based on convergence, coordination, and integration between the various stakeholders, with the aim of developing methods for managing this sector and rationalizing its exploitation and monitoring.”

The representatives recommended establishing “clear and precise regulatory procedures, through adopting advanced and more precise standards and controls that define the tasks of the various stakeholders in the field of quarries monitoring and ensure convergence between them, and activating the mechanism of linking responsibility to accountability and combating dependency, especially when it comes to monitoring.”

The report also recommended working to establish and implement the new principles in the field of governance and management introduced by Law No. 27.13 on quarries, especially those related to the fair and just distribution of the country’s resources, the transition to a rational and transparent economic system, and linking responsibility to accountability.

The report called for “eliminating random practices, professionalizing the sector, managing it transparently, encouraging competition, ensuring the supply of quarry materials to the market and ensuring their quality, intensifying monitoring, and simplifying procedures.”

It is noteworthy that the report included 67 recommendations that represented the conclusions of the meetings and encounters held by the members of the exploratory mission with various government sectors concerned with the quarry sector, in addition to the field visits made by the representatives to a number of points in the regions of Khouribga, Berrechid, Taza and Larache.