Morocco’s Finance Minister Fouzi Lekjaa used the final hours of an eighteen-hour parliamentary marathon on the 2026 budget bill to deliver an unambiguous message: private clinics and hospitals will not be allowed to swallow up 90 percent of the funds set aside for the country’s social protection system.
Speaking Friday evening as he wrapped up the general discussion of the finance bill in the House of Representatives, Lekjaa told lawmakers from both the majority and the opposition that his position on the issue is firm and will not shift. Generalizing social protection, he argued, only makes sense if ordinary citizens actually benefit from it, which means public money has to be channeled strictly toward the purposes it was earmarked for.
The minister reminded deputies that the social protection rollout is financed with public funds, which in his view demands careful management and constant vigilance over how sustainable those resources remain over time. Managing public finances, he told the chamber, is a trust before it is a government responsibility.
Morocco has spent the past several years extending mandatory health insurance, known as AMO, to self-employed workers, farmers and previously uninsured households, part of a broader social protection generalization drive launched under King Mohammed VI. Lekjaa’s remarks point to growing concern within the government that private healthcare providers could end up capturing a disproportionate share of that spending rather than the intended beneficiaries.
Beyond the clinics question, the minister laid out the government’s willingness to keep negotiating with political parties across the spectrum on the economic and social measures built into the 2026 budget. He pointed to possible steps on purchasing power, shorter administrative timelines for certain social procedures, and a potential review of survivor pensions paid to widows.
Lekjaa also defended the cumulative record of successive Moroccan governments on subsidy reform and social protection, arguing these efforts had helped preserve the kingdom’s fiscal balance while locking in social gains. He pushed back against black-and-white verdicts on these policies, saying reforms should be judged by what they build on rather than labeled flatly as successes or failures.
The minister closed by offering to coordinate with the Speaker of the House of Representatives to set aside enough time for a deeper, more detailed review of the budget bill, saying a wider parliamentary debate would help citizens better understand the government’s choices.
