It blames the bloated and heavily unionised administration. Last year the government added another six ministries to bring the total to 41. There are four for education alone. The prime minister recently sent a circular to ministers requiring them to get his permission before taking a second job. It would all matter less if the rest of the country were not so poor.
More mothers die in childbirth than anywhere else in the Arab world.
The state spends more on education than most countries in the developing world, yet one in two Moroccans can neither read nor write, a literacy rate that is worse than India's. And in the cities, which are flooded with rural migrants, almost one in four is out of work. King Mohammed and his band of advisers have promised to revamp the system. In a speech to businessmen last October, the king set a 60-day deadline for the state to approve foreign investments. But after 60 days Fathallah Oualalou, the minister of finance, was saying that the royal pronouncement was still in the pipeline.