Morocco’s head of the government, Mr. Abdellilah Benkirane, admitted going through clientelism, a form of corruption, “only once” in his life.
Speaking in front of a Moroccan Ministerial delegation, Benkirane said the following:
“I have never used my position as head of government to help my children find a job,”
“My daughter is now unemployed as she did not go through employment interviews and tests. She failed previously in tests to join the public sector. The day she succeeds, she will work like any other Moroccan citizen,” Benkirane stressed.
“This said, I swear by Allah, I won’t pick up my phone to ask my contacts to intervene for her. I swear. I have never used my contacts to help my children find a job.”
“I only intervened once for my son Oussama so that he could get a room in the students campus of ENCG Settat.”
Benkirane went on further to stress that “apart from this, I never intervened for anyone…”
Though Benkirane did not state explicitly when did he resort to his contacts to get a room for his son, Oussama Benkirane, The Moroccan Times understands that this may have occurred back in 1998-1999 as, according to our sources, Oussama studied in ENCG Settat from 1999 to 2003.
P.S: the translation was contextualized as a literal translation from Moroccan Darija to English for Benkirane’s speech is almost impossible.
The Moroccan Times.
