Open
* Admissibility date reflects the date the case was officially registered. All other dates pertain to the date in which a stage was completed.
Case Description
The EIB Complaints Mechanism (EIB-CM) received a complaint registered under the case reference SG/E/2023/13 from an individual regarding the Zenata Urban Development Project implemented in the Commune of Ain Harrouda, between Casablanca and Mohammedia in Morocco. The project involves the resettlement of more than 40,000 persons, approximately 70% of whom are low-income people scattered across 17 informal settlements that are to be dismantled under the “Villes sans Bidonvilles”, Morocco’s national programme (the “VSB”).
The complainant lives with his father, brothers and sisters in a beach house (“cabanon”) developed on concessional state land and subject to expropriation and financial compensation. The Resettlement Action Plan for the project foresees that, under certain conditions, Project Affected People (PAP) that lived continuously in a cabanon are subject to reinstallation under the VSB programme at similar conditions than PAP living in the informal settlements.
The complaint contains several allegations concerning the:
· lack of eligibility due to his marriage after the census of 2012 which sets the cut-off date for the eligible households; and
· transition costs of renting an alternative accommodation during the transition phase between the demolition and the reinstallation.
The allegations of the complainant are similar to the main allegations of cases which were subject to two compliance reviews and for which the conclusions reports were published on the EIB-CM’s webpages (see SG/E/2021/08 and SG/E/2022/11A, SG/E/2022/11C, SG/E/2022/18).
The EIB-CM has closed the case SG/E/2023/13 referring to its conclusions and recommendations issued in the above-mentioned conclusions reports. The EIB-CM will follow up on the implementation of its recommendations by EIB. This case is thus subject to EIB-CM’s monitoring.