King Mohammed VI has appointed this Tuesday Chakib Benmoussa head of the new ad-hoc committee for the development model, the royal office announced in a communiqué.
The committee, whose setting up was announced by the monarch in the State of the nation speech delivered on August 29 this year, is an advisory body that is tasked with making proposals and suggestions to improve the development reforms and increase their effectiveness.
The committee “will have to take into consideration the major reforms introduced – as well as those to come – in a number of sectors, such as education, health, agriculture, investment and taxation,” the Monarch had said, adding that the committee is expected to make suggestions on how to improve these reforms and increase effectiveness.
The monarch had insisted that the committee should be “totally impartial and objective, and to report on facts as they are on the ground, however harsh or painful they may be, and to be “daring and innovative” when proposing solutions.
“We must be resolute and audacious and show a keen spirit of responsibility as we implement the relevant conclusions and recommendations adopted, no matter how hard or costly that may be,” he underlined, noting that this is not about a break with the past. “Rather, we want to add a new building block to our development agenda, as part of a continuing process.”
The Monrach made it clear that the committee will not serve as a second government or be a parallel official institution. “This is an advisory body with a specific time-bound mission.”
As regards the committee’s membership, the King said he had seen to it that the committee includes representatives from various fields of knowledge and intellectual currents, including prominent Moroccans from the public and the private sectors who meet the requirements of competence and impartiality, who are able to feel the pulse of society, who understand its expectations and who have the nation’s best interests at heart.
Chakib Benmoussa served as interior minister from 2006 to 2010 and headed the social economic and environmental council from 2011 to 2012. In December 2012, he was appointed Morocco’s Ambassador to France, a position he held till this new appointment.