It was, to say the least, unusual to hear the first Moroccan television channel pronounce the name of Mohamed Saad Berrada when the images of the reception by Mohammed VI, in the royal palace of Rabat, to the new members of the Government, were broadcast on Wednesday October. 24. . Walking towards the sovereign who was standing in the throne room, the new Minister of Education bowed his head several times, his face tense, before kissing the monarch’s right arm.
In his position, Berrada presents an unorthodox profile: he is a businessman who made his fortune in baking and chocolate. The very serious online newspaper Médias24 designates it as “the great enigma of redesign”. Neither an elected official nor a senior official, with no experience in public affairs and having never taught, nothing in his career destined him for his new position. Only this little-known character is a close friend of the head of government, Aziz Akhannouch. “The two have known each other since the 80s”slips the director of a large company.
But the newspapers mainly focused on the position that Berrada has held since 2019 on the board of directors of the company Afriquia Gaz, a subsidiary of the Akwa holding company, majority owned by the Akhannouch family. Because the reorganization highlighted the links that the conglomerate, active in the energy, tourism and media sectors, maintains with a part of the ruling class in Morocco.
Risk of “clientelistic purposes”
This proximity is even clearer in the case of Amine Tahraoui, now Minister of Health. He was a senior executive at Akwa and even worked for Salwa Akhannouch, the billionaire’s wife. Through franchise agreements, this priestess of shopping centers introduced large global groups to Morocco, including LVMH and Inditex.
The emergence, at an unprecedented level in the government, of former employees or personalities linked to ” activities ” of the couple is still reflected in the appointment of Wafaa Jemali as director of the National Social Support Agency. Overtaken by Akwa, it now controls more than 2 billion euros in aid to the most vulnerable.
“The agency benefits four million households, so its role is strategic. But less than two years before the next legislative elections, the risk that this organization functions for clientelistic purposes is great.”observes political scientist Mohamed Madani. “Faced with this electoral deadline, he continues, Without a doubt, the Head of Government needs more faithful people than competent people. »
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