The elected officials of the city of Salé have vetoed the transfer of Veolia's shares, the company in charge of water and electricity distribution, to Actis. Indeed, the municipality plans to buy back these shares and create an agglomeration group for the management of this service while waiting to prepare the specifications relating to the creation of a local development company. This decision comes after the French company announced its imminent departure a few months ago and unveiled its intention to sell its shares to the said company in both Rabat and Salé.

While the file is still pending in Rabat, following the decision of the elected officials who had demanded the postponement of the decision-making to a later date, in order to scrutinise the details of the current contract before sending the file back to the finance committee for re-examination, the elected officials of the city of Salé did not wait long to issue their verdict: no transfer of shares, the buyout will be done by the municipality itself. "In Salé, as in several cities in Morocco, we have realised that delegated management was a poor option for guaranteeing quality services. We have therefore decided to put an end to this mode of management and create an agglomeration group for the management of water and electricity services as well as sanitation," confides Nourredine Lazrak, Mayor of Salé. To do this, the mayor plans to renegotiate the sale of Veolia's shares. A task that does not look easy given the amount demanded by the company. According to the Mayor of Salé, Veolia is claiming more than 1.2 billion dirhams. A colossal amount for a municipality that has always struggled to finance these projects, given the very reduced budget that the latter receives from the Ministry of the Interior.

But this disadvantage is not enough to discourage the President of the City Council. "Since the experience of delegated management has shown its limits, it is clear that the only solution that remains is that of municipal management through the creation of a local development company, but for the moment we are not there yet," adds Lazrak. Indeed, the municipality plans to negotiate Veolia's departure for 500 million dirhams with a view to creating an agglomeration group in the image of the city of Tangier. Through this initiative, Salé would be the second city after the Strait city to have opted for this choice. "We intend to draw inspiration from the Tangier model, which seems to have been very successful, to create a municipal company in Salé in charge of managing these services.

It will certainly require a significant commitment in parallel with the mobilisation of funds, but we can no longer accept offering the citizen a mediocre service at a fairly high price," exclaims the city's mayor.

Therefore, while waiting for the end of the negotiations, the French company Veolia will continue to provide this service. However, its performance will always be subject to the control of the City Council, which is responsible for imposing sanctions in the event that it does not respect the terms of the contract.

The choice of delegated management: Salé, like the city of Rabat, has resorted to delegated management for several services, notably the collection of household waste. The City Council even proceeded last September to replace the departing company Veolia with the company Mechomar. The latter thus provides this service with the company Techmed, which has been working in Salé for several years. According to the Mayor of Salé, Techmed has significantly improved its services since a formal notice was issued by the City Council, which has already applied penalties against this company once it noted a slowdown in its activities.