Out of nearly 10,000 promised housing units, barely a few hundred have been delivered to their final recipients. The reason being that two developers, Général Contractor and Hidaya, failed to meet their commitments. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning is attempting to limit the damage.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Policy had signed two memoranda of understanding with Général Contractor and Al Hidaya, on 25 November 2005 and 17 March 2006 respectively, within the framework of the public-private partnership with Al Omrane Tamesna. But since then, things have not gone as planned. According to Nabil Benabdellah's department, regarding Général Contractor, the commitment aimed at the construction of 4,760 housing units. In this context, the Hiba I project of 728 units was fully completed and delivered. For the Hiba II, III, and IV projects, given the developer's failure to respect commitments, the Group proceeded to recover the related land, in accordance with the memorandum of understanding signed on 29 December 2009.
For the Hiba V project concerning the construction of 1,800 units, 700 units were started and marketed, but the site has been at a standstill since 2009. "In the context of monitoring and given the developer's failure, legal proceedings were initiated and resulted in a judgment on 4 March 2015 allowing for the recovery of the land and the termination of the agreement. Thus, the Al Omrane Group will be able, once the formalities are completed, to resume work and satisfy the expectations of the buyers," the Ministry emphasises.
Regarding the "Al Hidaya" project, initiated by a Malaysian developer, concerning the construction of 4,980 units, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Policy wishes to clarify that, regarding the first phase, the developer fully completed the project thanks in particular to a loan contracted from the CIH, which the developer did not repay.
Indeed, 382 housing units were mortgaged to the bank as a guarantee for a loan of 60 million dirhams, which hinders their handover to clients. "The competent authorities are currently working hard to allow families to recover their homes after full payment of their prices, the Ministry reminds," indicates the supervisory department. As for the second tranche (1,843 units), where work has been at a standstill since 2011, it should be noted, according to the Ministry, that 700 units have been marketed to date for a value of 45 million dirhams. For the third tranche, work was never started. Consequently, and by virtue of the provisions of the partnership contract, the Al Omrane Group was forced to resort to an international arbitration body on 25 April 2013.
The ruling will be delivered in the coming weeks. The ultimate goal of these efforts is the recovery of the land for both tranches in order to proceed with the regularisation of this situation and thus meet the expectations of the clients of the second tranche within the framework of a balanced financial arrangement taking into account technical and financial constraints.
