Covid-19: 4.3 million households to receive financial aid- Finance minister

The Moroccan state will distribute aid to 4.3 million families, headed by workers in the informal sector, as the coronavirus outbreak and the measures to contain it freeze economic activity in multiple sectors pushing millions to temporary unemployment, finance minister Benchaaboun said.

During the parliament question time Monday, Benchaaboun said that 2.3 million households have been registered under the first phase covering RAMED health care cards holders and that another 2 million families will benefit as part of the second leg.

The assistance will be financed by the fund created under Royal instructions to mitigate the virus’s social and economic impact and keep jobs.

Benchaaboun said the fund now has 32 billion dirhams and that 6 billion had already been spent on assistance to families and health infrastructure.

Out of 216,000 companies, 132,000 declared they were undermined by Covid 19, leaving more than 800,000 employees and workers unemployed temporarily. These will receive 2000 dirhams per month until June, amounting to 2 billion dirhams monthly, he said.

Companies in difficult conditions because of the pandemic benefited from loan deferrals with 416,000 businesses asking to delay credit payments, he said.

The government has also guaranteed for companies a lifeline, dubbed Damane Oxygen, to facilitate access to loans to SMEs with a turnover of less than 500 million dirhams. So far, 9,000 loans have been offered worth 3.7 billion dirhams.

To boost Morocco’s reserve of foreign currency, foreign borrowing threshold was raised and Morocco drew on the 3 billion dollar precautionary liquidity line offered by the IMF, he recalled.

The IMF financing will not affect public debt, noted Benchaaboun, adding that it will be geared to finance the balance of payments.

He said attention now is set on preparing the Moroccan economy for the post-Covid era through a better management of public spending and promoting national production.