Parliamentary Groups in the House of Representatives have launched an initiative to request the establishment of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the importation into Morocco of Russian diesel and thus highlight the gray areas surrounding it, indicates a joint press release published last Friday.
The mission will consist of shedding light on issues related to “aux documents on the origin of the import, the prices, as well as the profits collected“. The initiators specify in their press release that it is ” closely linked to security and the energy bill, purchasing power and tax revenue “.
Russian diesel is currently the main concern of opposition MPs who are active in the parliamentary groups of the People’s Movement (MP) and the Progress and Socialism Party (PPS) and the grouping of the Justice Party and development (PJD). Until then, nothing new in this request except that it must convince the three parties to sign 131 deputies to put forward this request and address it to the President of the House of Representatives Rachid Talbi El Alami.
The initiative is intended to be open to all deputies who can sign it, whether they come from opposition or majority groups, the aim being the search for the truth in order to reassure national public opinion. According to article 67 of the Constitution, parliamentary commissions of inquiry may be set up, on the initiative of the King, or at the request of one third of the members of the House of Representatives, or of one third of the members of the House of Councillors.
Commissions of inquiry cannot be set up in cases subject to legal proceedings, as long as these proceedings are in progress. Commissions of inquiry are temporary in nature and their work ends with the submission of their report to the office of the council concerned and, where appropriate, with the referral to justice by the president of this council.
That said, the total of deputies of these three parties in question does not exceed 65. The party of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) which sometimes claims to be part of the majority, sometimes of the opposition holds 35 seats in the House of Representatives, which would have been a game-changer if he had attended the party. But so far he is defecting. Yet the USFP with the three other political formations, adhere to a mechanism of “coordination” between them. The latter is chaired by the member of the political bureau of the MP and president of the haraki group in the House of Representatives, Driss Sentissi.
In this regard, a MoroccoLatestNews source indicated that Driss Sentissi contacted the leader of the socialist group, the president of the socialist group in the House of Representatives, Abderrahim Chahid (USFP) and asked him to join the initiative or “the sling” so to speak. But the latter, who was not very enthusiastic about the approach of the PPS, MP and PJD, asked for a delay until the meeting of the political bureau of the Rose party in order to take a final decision on the question.
This procrastination is not without raising questions about the real motivations of the USFP, which was the first to shout haro against the government regarding the import of Russian diesel. Let us remember, USFP deputy Abdelkader Taher had sent a written question to Nadia Fettah Alaoui, relating to alleged “falsification of proof of the origin of imports of petroleum products” what the minister had brushed aside with a formal denial. In the meantime, with or without the USFP, we are heading for a splash in the water, as the project to set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry seems to fall within the domain of agreeing not to agree.