Morocco battles unlawful construction

The Moroccan government is toughening laws to combat unregulated housing development.

By Hassan Benmehdi for Magharebia in Casablanca

[Hassan Benmehdi] Moroccan authorities are proposing new legislation to crack down on illegal construction.

Urban development in Morocco has been significantly blighted by illegal construction. With a new law, the government aims to impose stiffer penalties on violators.

“The problem of unregulated construction has become a real scourge for Morocco. People are convinced the sector has been left to do its own devices,” stressed Abdelmajid Moha from the Casamémoire Association. “Moreover, it is a breeding ground for corruption, because all this unsafe building is going on with the local authorities’ full knowledge.”

In Casablanca alone, there is “an entire shantytown on the edge of the city known as B’ni Draâou [Built with one’s arms]”, he told Magharebia. “The inhabitants coming in from the countryside are building their own dwellings without consideration for the current rules and in defiance of local officials.”

Under the draft law, violators can be jailed for up to twelve months and pay fines ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 dirhams.

The penalties are even harsher for developers building residential complexes without permit, with fines of up to five million dirhams and prison sentences of between one and five years.

Last year, the government made a major move against unlawful construction, particularly in Meknes, Sale, Agadir, Fes, Dar Bouazza, El Jadida, Tangier, Safi and Mohammedia. Local officials were prosecuted for corruption and failure to report illegal building sites.

“The state will no longer allow or accept anything even remotely to do with unlawful housing. Going unpunished is a thing of the past,” an official from the housing ministry, who preferred not to be identified, told Magharebia.

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The draft bill envisions a new watchdog to provide information and report offenders. It also provides for tougher monitoring of authorised construction sites, and where current laws are not observed, reports will be sent to the public prosecutor’s office within three days. Those same inspectors will have the power to halt work on construction sites where irregularities have been found.

The new law will simplify procedures by lifting the requirement to go through an appeal process before the Communal Council.

With these new measures, illegal construction cases will be brought before the courts with greater transparency, efficiency and speed, according to Casablanca-based lawyer Rachid Tarek. “There was no real judicial mechanism to clamp down on unregulated housing,” he said.

The government’s efforts must not be curtailed by “the multifaceted resistance” of “real mafias and lobbyists” working in the shadows to encourage the growth of the phenomenon, said Housing, Town Planning and Urban Policy Minister Nabil Benabdallah.

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