‘Immigration Means Quality’: This Is How Akhannouch Justifies Morocco’s Transformation Into a Repulsive Environment

This is the case for the Moroccan Prime Minister, Aziz Akhannouch, since his appointment to his position on October 8, 2021.

Akhannouch said that the brain drain reflects the quality of the training of doctors and engineers in Morocco in justification for the failure of the ruling system to stop the brain drain outside the kingdom.

 

Shirk Responsibility

In an opening speech to the African Economic Forum, held on October 20 in Casablanca, Akhannouch said that the Moroccan brain drain abroad means the kingdom is building good doctors, engineers, professors, and programmers.

This statement provoked different segments of society. Political activist Mohamed Khayyi el-Khamlichi said: "In other circumstances, this disastrous statement would not have gone unnoticed, and in circumstances other than the circumstances in which we live, such talk would have been considered a scandal that requires political accountability."

In a Facebook post on October 21, el-Khamlichi asked: "How can we tolerate or condone the prime minister's pride in brain drain? How do we understand his justification for the emigration of talent and their leaving their motherland in search of another home as this emigration is evidence of the quality of training in Morocco!! And does our education system work?"

For its part, the local KAFA Press website responded, "The answer to Akhannouch's statement is that the government did not provide them with the necessary conditions for work or provide them with wages that guarantee a decent living."

In an article published on October 20, it explained that "Morocco suffers from a great shortage of skilled workers, especially in the health sector, and the ministry estimates the number of doctors who have emigrated abroad at 14,000, in addition to a large number of engineers and researchers in various fields, especially scientific ones."

The journalist on the Al-Jazeera channel, Abdessamad Nacir, said: "My question to Mr. Aziz Akhannouch: If these talents had an attractive environment in Morocco to achieve their dreams and serve their country, would they migrate?"

While there are no statistics available on the number of immigrant Moroccan minds, the Maghreb Times website stated that "the number of brain drain from Morocco to abroad has recently increased, as hundreds of young people, including engineers, nurses, professors, and doctors choose to emigrate abroad at the first opportunity."

In an article on October 20, the site attributed this to "the search for better scientific, professional and life prospects, and a condemnation of the government's lack of attention to their demands."

He stressed that "often their motive to migrate is greater than material, to preserve the dignity of living and to escape the working conditions in which they live."

 

Social Misery

Observers attribute the Moroccan brain drain abroad to two main factors. The first is the weak care that the state gives to these qualified workers in the fields of science, media, sports, and arts, and the second is the great moral and material hospitality they enjoy in the receiving countries.

Digital media specialist Mohsen Koraifi said in a Facebook post on October 21 that "Akhannouch's statement embodies the extremes of political bankruptcy and social misery and the decline of the lowest levels of rational discourse."

Koraifi added, "It is a scene in which the prime minister tried to justify one failure by another, as he tried to obscure the reality of the failure in the education sector in a country where more than half of the population is illiterate, and the quality of education is declining year after year."

He continued: "This matter made Morocco at the bottom of the list behind countries suffering from wars and famines by linking it to another failure, which is the failure to preserve the few competencies that were able in one way or another to climb the pyramid of knowledge to hit the wall of unemployment, mediation, marginalization, lack of appreciation and low wages. Then they decided to search for better opportunities for work, life, and appreciation outside the walls of this country."

Koraifi addressed Akhannouch, saying: "Brain drain does not refer to the quality of education, Mr. Prime Minister. Rather, it means that this country has become just a rotten swamp of thieves and parasites that can only live and reproduce by absorbing the blood of the fragile, vulnerable classes."

Morocco ranked as the second highest rate of brain drain in the Middle East and North Africa region, according to the Arab Report on Cultural Development and the London-based Al Arab Weekly newspaper in August 2022.

 

Fatal Error

For his part, political activist Mohamed Alansari said, "Akhannouch's statement aimed to show the importance of Morocco, so he falls into a terrible mistake because the dimensions of his words carry a very important need, which is that Morocco is a chaser of talent, losing millions of dirhams in education for the benefits of other countries."

He added to Al-Estiklal that "Akhannouch's advisory team lacks wisdom in examining the speeches and reading their dimensions, instead of searching for justifications that are more horrible than the problem. Here we can talk about the team's experience, efficiency, and skill in dealing with the writing of any rhetorical text for the prime minister."

He pointed out that "the drain of Moroccan cadres does not mean that it is with the efficiency that the prime minister is talking about and that it is the product of the national school, but rather it is the personal effort of students who worked hard away from the walls of the schools and searched for an opportunity."

In turn, the head of the Justice and Development Youth (JJD), Adil Saghir, said: "I saw a provocative statement by the Prime Minister, in which he promises that the brain drain reflects the quality of training doctors and engineers in Morocco, as if Morocco and Moroccans do not deserve to benefit from this quality that they produced."

Adil Saghir added in an article he published on the opposition party's website on October 25: "Akhannouch is consistent with his capitalist background, in believing that everything is tradable, and everything has a price in the buying and selling market."

He pointed out that "Akhannouch dealt with immigrant minds while he is the head of the government, as he dealt with food security data when he was minister of agriculture."

Alansari concluded his speech to Al-Estiklal by emphasizing that "Akhannouch must be responsible for any bleeding that Morocco suffers from, especially since this migration is no longer limited to recent university graduates. Rather, the senior cadres of doctors, engineers, and others, are fed up and are looking for real and better opportunities in the West."

He cautioned that "many parents left Morocco in search of better educational prospects for their children, to secure their future with a serious and useful education, and therefore the responsibility now rests with the government in general to save what can be saved and repair the defects to preserve the real capital of the country, which is the citizen."