Newspaper articles 30, Contraband Modern in the Fes Medina

Abderrazak Misbah,General Manager of the Customs Department, in response to the national press: Smuggling is forcefully driving the labour market into a crisis

Assahra - Al- Maghribia, issue 4390, 26 January 2001

Moroccan newspapers have recently dealt with smuggling as a phenomenon that has impinged on the national economy. Some have even gone further to blame the Customs Department. What follows is the General Manager of the Customs Department - Abderrazak Misbah’s reaction to the whole range of articles in the national press.

Every now and then Moroccan newspapers bring the issue of smuggling to the forefront, and save much of their spaces, which sometimes go over a full page, to this phenomenon.

First of all, I would like to point out that no one would refute and disallow the positive side of raising this crucial issue which is considered actually to be one of the main preoccupations and anxieties of the national public opinion, on the one hand, because it is concurrently correlated with our every day life, and on the other hand, because of its immediate results and effects on national economy. Yet, what in fact draws my attention is that all these articles have common characteristics, which I would briefly summarize in the following aspects:

All the articles at least most of them condemn and denounce this phenomenon; but, at the same time they struggle to bring enough evidence to bear it out as a tolerable means of making a living.

These articles hold responsible the Customs authorities, police officers as well, for being either accomplices or co-conspirators when goods are brought in, or assailants and aggressors when the smugglers are detained.

These articles consider the fact that any effort to wipe out smuggling without sustaining and developing adjacent territories is to end people’s means of a living.

The articles, startlingly, wonder why some people purchase goods from Moroccan cities such as Fnidek, Tetouan and Nador even in the face of being accused of smuggling. They also wonder why the state doesn’t take the necessary measures in border sites to prevent the circulation of goods inside the country’s cities.

After this brief overview, I will try to make some clarifications which might enrich the discussion and help find ways out to this phenomenon.

First: Morocco is not the only country to harbour this phenomenon. It is familiar all over the world mostly at bordering regions between countries that witness a loaded movement of trade transactions that do not abide by the regular Customs law and regulations. This can indeed fluctuate from one place to another but the focus on Morocco is mainly due to two main factors:
The huge disparities in terms of development at the border sites, which actually creates an inordinate desirability of foreign products.
The phenomenon is located in geographically specific and limited sites, which makes the overflow of people visible and salient.

Second: it is understood that all goods sold in Moroccan borders have been submitted to tax duties, hence should not be controlled, and no measures should be taken against dealers. Unfortunately this theoretical assumption is far from being logically true. As I have pointed out before, countries all over the world witness smuggling activities but very often overlooked and disregarded as long as the consumption of the merchandise is limited to border sites and regions within reasonable distances. But, when this activity is expanded to go beyond the border sites where goods are carried away in a much more organised and professional way to other cities, where it becomes a stable vocation for some who manage to use both public and private vehicles, it is definitely considered a kind of smuggling. On the other hand, no matter how resourceful and efficient the means of control would be, authorities will never be able to impede smuggling operations. Thus, Customs Department’s regulations and laws have allowed Customs Officers’ interference to be extended to the internal parts of the country’s borders through the setting up of Customs controlling zones, or through regular and hard-hitting monitoring inside cities in their attempts to recover what has passed unnoticed at the borders. This clearly illustrates the involvement of Customs authorities in the world’s biggest cities such as Paris, New York and Rome. Moreover, the Northern parts of Morocco are of a particular kind since the national territories include the occupied cities of Sebta and Mellilia that enable the massive overflow of people (almost 2000 passengers per day in each site). This makes it thorny, if not impossible, to control the waves of people in an efficient manner. The endeavour to control people and goods often results in protests, demonstrations, hostility and clashes. This, of course, forces the Customs Department to accept the situation in order to peacefully calm things down and maintain general security.

Some would actually think that by controlling smuggling inside the country, Customs Officers hamper and disturb the poor and widows’ ways of making a living. Those people who come from different distant parts of Northern Morocco to purchase their own goods for personal uses are categorically aware that those products are cheaper than the same goods in their areas simply because they are commercialized illegally without being taxed. If it were not the case, how otherwise could we account for people’s voracity and greediness to Northern markets which are in fact less abundant than other cities such as Rabat and Casablanca. Keeping on believing in such fallacies and neglecting truth would not, in my opinion, help a lot to resolve the problem.

Third: to consider smuggling a means of employment is an unsteady and risky undertaking that would unquestionably have unproductive effects on our culture, traditions and on social and economic equilibrium. If employment is regarded as a means of earning one’s living it is after all a way of participating into the creation of a nationwide potential. There is no need to take advantage of illegal conditions for profit-pursuing through smuggling without paying tax duties which would help to develop national economy.
Studies have shown that any job conceded through smuggling (admitting that smuggling offers jobs) leads to a loss of ten adequate and well thought-of posts. In addition, to generalize this categorization will lead us to accept robbery and perhaps crime too as ways out to combat poverty.

Fourth: to support smugglers and consider them real contributors in decreasing unemployment rates leads also to justify and legitimize this practice. More than this, the intensification of such practices results in the emergence of a comparable economy that grows in shadows and which doesn’t abide by the current economic and safety regulations.

Fifth: to consider customs officers’ complicity is to indubitably mete out devastating consequences on their working abilities and bring their responsibilities into question. I don’t deny the existence of conspirators, and I do believe that every country has witnessed indiscretions and transgressions when it comes to matters of money. The Customs Department deals with cases of connivance and takes the necessary measures through constant monitoring. The department often takes harsh disciplinary actions against connivers. But we all have to know that if civil servants should carry out entirely and flawlessly their jobs they really need to feel that their department is behind to back them up and assist them; otherwise they will never trust the administration and never perform their jobs perfectly. On the other hand, is just having few conspirators enough to inflame everyone and to generalize and consider customs officers as being illegally enriched? After all, exceptions are general rules.

Sixth: in dealing with exceptions, how to make an off course / a stray bullet a rule, as if this act were of a regular occurrence, bearing in mind that all such occurrences are known and limited? More than that, how can a smuggler arouse our pity while we forget about the officer’s duty who sacrifices his life to protect the country, officers who spend days and nights in hospitals because they have been aggressively molested by both the smuggler and local inhabitants using superior weapons? How could things be turned upside down for the blame to fall on the officer’s head? In my opinion, there should be an even-handed and logical sense of balance when dealing with the issue. Who is really the victim?

Seventh: to develop the Northern parts of Morocco through investments and fundamental equipment is indeed the best way to combat this phenomenon. We should not keep waiting; we should stand together to find transitional solutions at least to gradually bring to a halt the alarming number of dealers. This requires everybody’s consent: of the Customs Department, civil society, non governmental organizations, in order to develop a sense of patriotism which considers non-payment of taxes a total destruction of national economy. We need to take frank and true positions.

Translator lhoussain Simour