The Minister of National Planning, Urban Planning, Housing, and City Policy, Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, announced on Monday at the House of Representatives that a total of 698,000 social housing units have been completed by March 2024 under the Social Housing Program, which offers units at 250,000 dirhams.
Minister El Mansouri highlighted that nearly 88,000 of these units were completed by the Al Omrane Group, accounting for 13% of the total. Additionally, 20,143 units are currently under construction, and 300 units have been finished but not yet delivered. She shared this information in response to an oral question regarding “Ensuring Decent Housing for Socially Vulnerable Categories.”
For low-cost housing units valued at 140,000 dirhams, the Minister revealed that 48,000 units were completed by the Al Omrane Group, with 9,000 units in progress and 1,657 completed but awaiting delivery.
Addressing the delays in some unit completions, El Mansouri attributed these setbacks to land clearance issues. She emphasized that the ministry and the Al Omrane Group have mobilized national and local partners to expedite land clearance processes and create individual land titles. They have also adopted a new commercial policy through an electronic platform.
Over the past two decades, initiatives launched under Royal patronage have enabled 4,250,000 low-income citizens to access decent housing, she noted.
In response to another question concerning “The Future of Delayed Projects at Local Levels,” Minister El Mansouri reported that 300 agreements have been concluded since the inception of the urban policy in 2015. Out of these, 190 were signed between 2015 and 2021, with 110 signed during the current government term.
She detailed that her department allocated 14.8 billion dirhams in funding (9.8 billion dirhams from 2015-2021 and 5 billion dirhams for 2021-2024). A third of the financial commitments and two-thirds of the fund disbursements have been made during the current government term, indicating an acceleration in project implementation.
Minister El Mansouri reported that works planned under 83 agreements were completed from 2015 to 2024, with 57% of these in rural areas, at a total cost exceeding 3.6 billion dirhams. The ministry contributed 2.3 billion dirhams to this total.
These agreements include the rehabilitation of over 170 under-equipped neighborhoods and the construction and outfitting of community sports fields and cultural and social facilities. However, for the remaining 197 agreements, project completion is estimated at 50%, with 20 agreements experiencing delays due to issues such as liquid sanitation work delays.
