The compensation of civil servants in remote areas of the Kingdom still poses a problem. The agreement on the criteria for designating remote areas constitutes a real headache for the actors concerned. This is the case of Sidi Ifni where several teachers observed two days of strike to demand that this city be considered a remote area, and this against the advice of the provincial delegate of the Ministry of National Education who retained only nine schools as meeting this criterion.

According to Rachid Herbaz, a union official, the delegate's proposal is unfounded, even senseless, given the failures of public services in this city. "Sidi Ifni lacks everything: doctors, lawyers, notaries, bank branches, public services, etc. In short, our city is experiencing exclusion and remoteness," he specified to us. According to him, this locality has always constituted a place of transition for several civil servants who preferred to try their luck elsewhere instead of staying in this city. Hence the interest, according to him, in declaring it a remote area, so that the compensation granted to its civil servants encourages them to stay there.

However, the opinion of the provincial delegate of the MEN does not seem to join that of the unionists. According to him, only nine schools out of 108 are part of the remote areas. A point of view not shared by the provincial delegate of the Ministry of Health who declared, for his part, that the whole of Sidi Ifni is a remote area.

Same judgment from Abdelhak Bouhouch, provincial secretary general of the FDT, who believes that the opinion of the ministry's representative is unfair since cities close to Sidi Ifni are declared remote areas. "We do not understand how cities like Guelmim, Laayoune or Tiznit have been considered as such while our city has been excluded from the list. Yet, it perfectly meets the reference framework which emphasises the factors of geographical remoteness, the lack of infrastructure (water, electricity, supply centre...), the type of climate... in order to allow civil servants to benefit from compensation," he wondered.

Rachid Herbaz thinks that the question of designating remote areas remains a very sensitive subject which risks causing certain social tensions. For him, the delay recorded in the operationalisation of this measure speaks volumes about the difficulties of the parties concerned to agree on the criteria defining remote areas. "The Ministry of National Education is called upon to assume its responsibilities. Its definition of remote areas must be done in a broader sense in order to establish the principle of administrative equality between all civil servants," Abdelhak Bouhouch affirmed to us.