طنجة 24 – محسن الصمدي: نوه تقرير هولندي، بقرار الجماعة الحضرية لمدينة طنجة، القاضي برفض تفويت شركة « أمانديس » لأسهمها إلى مجموعة « أكتيس » البريطانية، واسترجاعها لتدبير قطاع الماء والكهرباء والتطهير السائل.
غير أن الموقع الهولندي المتخصص في تعقب المدن العالمية التي تخلصت من سطوة شركات التدبير المفوض لقطاع الماء، أكد في تقريره أن هذا القرار جاء بدعم من وزارة الداخلية المغربية، التي تدخلت من أجل إيهام المواطنين بأنها تهتم بمصالحهم وتضعهم على رأس أولوياتها، لتجنب ما حدث في دول الجوار بسبب الربيع العربي.
وأضاف التقرير، أن خدمات « أمانديس » كانت تثير سخط المواطنين، حيث أن أغلب الإحتجاجات والمظاهرات التي شهدتها المدينة كانت تتضمن شعارات منددة بغلاء فواتير الماء والكهرباء والمطالبة بسحب عقد التدبير المفوض منها، الأمر الذي إستجابت له وزارة الداخلية.
وأوضح نفس المصدر، أن رفض الجماعة تفويت شركة « أمانديس » لأسهمها إلى مجموعة « أكتيس » البريطانية، جاء بالأساس لكون الأخيرة لم تستشرها قبل إتخاذها لقرار التفويت، بالإضافة إلى إستقدامها لموظفين فرنسيين وتعينهم في مناصب قيادية ومنحهم لرواتب ضخمة متجاهلين بذلك العنصر المحلي، وكذا عدم إعطائها للجماعة معلومات كافية تمكنها من تتبع عملها ومراقبته.
ولم يخف الموقع الهولندي، أن يكون هذا القرار مرتبطا بشكل رئيسي بقرب الإستحقاقات الإنتخابية المزمع تنظيمها سنة 2015، حيث أن هذه الخطوة ستزيد من شعبية الهيئات المنتخبة وستزيد في حظوظها لنيل ولاية تانية.
ويعتبر موقع » The remunicipalisation » من أهم المؤسسات العالمية المناهضة للتدبير المفوض لقطاع الماء في العالم، حيث تنادي الأخيرة بضرورة دمقرطة الحق في الماء دون تفويته لأي شركة قصد الربح منه.
وكانت المجلس الجماعي لمدينة طنجة، صادق في 26 ماي 2014، على قرار ينص على رفض تفويت « أمانديس » لأسهمها إلى شركة « أكتيس » البريطانية، واسترجاع تدبير هذا القطاع من طرف الجماعة الحضرية لطنجة، طبقا لأحكام الفصل 72 من عقد التدبير المفوض لقطاع الماء والكهرباء والتطهير السائل.
http://allpress.pro/dossiers-speciaux/266242
The water and electricity services of major Moroccan cities were sold to French multinationals Veolia and Suez in the 1990s and early 2000s. A few years ago, Veolia announced its intention to sell its contracts in Tangier -Tétouan and Rabat-Salé to a British investment fund, Actis. But local authorities recently voted against the deal and decided to take over the services under a form still to be decided.
(Note: the cases of Rabat-Salé and Tangier -Tétouan are presented here as a single case because of their similarities.)
Veolia has managed the water, sanitation and electricity services of two of Morocco’s main urban areas, Rabat-Salé and Tangier -Tétouan, for 15 and 10 years respectively. (In the other large Moroccan urban area, Casablanca, Suez Environnement manages the water and electricity services, also under controversial conditions.) The services were managed through two distinct subsidiaries, Redal for Rabat-Salé and Amendis for Tangier -Tétouan.
For several years, Veolia had expressed its intention to withdraw from the country because the contracts were not profitable enough (although both Redal and Amendis were actually profitable).
In 2013, Veolia announced that it had found a buyer willing to purchase Amendis and Redal – a British-based investment fund called Actis. Actis originates from a former public-owned British overseas aid fund, the Colonial Development Corporation. It claims to specialise in collective services and infrastructure in “emerging markets”. Its current assets (mostly in the electricity sector) are said to be worth USD 5 billion. It is representative of a new category of financial players in water and electricity privatisation in Africa – Finagestion, which is active in Senegal and the Ivory Coast, is another example. Actis’s stated goal in acquiring Redal and Amendis was to build “African champions” that would go on to run water services all over the continent. The actual plan was to restructure both companies to make them more profitable, and then sell them for a profit after six or seven years.
The deal, however, was conditional on the approval of city authorities, which had not been involved in the negotiations. In May and June, 2014, the city councils of Témarra, Salé, Rabat, Tangier and Tétouan refused the proposed deal between Veolia and Actis and decided to buy back Veolia’s shares in the water and electricity service. (Seven smaller, rural cities had previously approved the deal.) Local politicians mentioned international precedents of cities taking over their water supply from multinational corporations and the global remunicipalisation trend as a justification for this decision.
Broader bigger reasons for refusal to allow the deal to go ahead were three-fold.
First, local politicians were strongly resentful about Veolia sealing a deal with Actis based on purely financial considerations and without consulting them. They were also unhappy with Actis’s explicit plan to own Redal and Amendis for only a few years and then to sell them at a profit.
Second, there was dissatisfaction with the way Veolia had run the water and electricity services in both urban areas. Local authorities claimed that Veolia had failed to meet all its obligations under the privatisation contracts and, in particular, it had not realised all the infrastructure investments it was to have made. In Tangier -Tétouan and Rabat-Salé (as well as in Casablanca), auditors identified several irregularities in the financial management of Amendis and Redal, including high salaries for French expatriates, management fees and excessive bills to other Veolia subsidiaries or external providers. Local authorities and the Ministry of the Interior also accused Veolia of providing only piecemeal information on the operation of the service, making any form of public control extremely difficult. Residents were unhappy with the high price of water.
Finally, Moroccan politics (in the wider context of the Arab countries) also played a key role. In February 2011, in the middle of the Arab Spring, there were huge popular demonstrations in major Moroccan cities, and Veolia was one of the protesters’ main targets. With local elections coming up in Morocco in 2015, political parties have been keen to show that they are siding with their constituents. There have also been numerous (and contradictory) rumours about the exact role of the Moroccan Interior Ministry, which plays a key role in local affairs.
There were many debates about the manner of the remunicipalisation. The city councils voted in favour of buying back Veolia’s shares in Amendis and Redal. However, opposition parties and civil society groups claimed the deal should have been refused on the basis of other clauses of the privatisation contract, which would have allowed them to cancel it altogether, thereby avoiding having to pay hefty sums to Veolia. But cancelling the contract altogether was thought too risky, because of the likelihood that Veolia would initiate an international compensation procedure.
Veolia reacted to the local authorities’ refusal of the deal by claiming that remunicipalisation was actually in line with its previous decision to withdraw from Morocco, as part of its “debt reduction plan” (an excuse the corporation had also used when the city of Berlin, Germany, decided to remunicipalise its water service). Actis claimed that its plan for Amendis and Redal had been misjudged and that it was still interested in taking over both companies.
Moroccan Interior Ministry. In a country that is not entirely democratic and is very centralised, the Ministry of the Interior plays a key role in local governments. There have been many rumours about its exact role in the councils’ decision to refuse the deal between Veolia and Actis, although the ministry has claimed it was a neutral party.
Social movements in the context of the Arab Spring. Although Morocco did not have a full-scale social uprising as occurred in other Arab countries, there have been local demonstrations and popular anger against Veolia. In the wider context of the Arab Spring and its aftermath, Moroccan politicians have been keen to show they are responsive to their constituents’ dissatisfaction.
The situation in both urban areas is not clear at the time of writing. City councils have officially voted for the remunicipalisation of the water and electricity services, although Veolia claims it has not been officially notified of this decision.
It is not known under which legal form the water service will be managed, either as a French-style régie directe, or (perhaps more likely) a corporatised service (société de développement local) with at least a majority public ownership, but which could also have minority private shareholders. Under present conditions, only the creation of sociétés de développement local would allow the cities in both urban areas to continue running their public services jointly. The Moroccan Ministry of the Interior will likely play a key role in the final decision, which will take a few months at least.
Gestion déléguée: aux origines de l’affaire Actis. Tel Quel. Available at: http://telquel.ma/2014/06/17/gestion-deleguee-actis-trappe_139294
Le droit à l’eau bafoué. Available at : http://www.rampedre.net/news/Maroc_départ_veolia_actis#.U6mdIV7wuw0
Mehdi Lahlou. Water privatisation in Morocco. Available at : http://www.tni.org/archives/act/18357
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