Morocco's billionaire prime minister is fighting bills to cap fuel prices in his own industry

Morocco's Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, the billionaire petrol baron who controls Afriquia, the country's largest fuel distribution network, publicly fumed on June 16, 2026 against opposition-filed parliamentary bills seeking to cap fuel prices and nationalise the country's only oil refinery, the Samir facility, in a confrontation that puts his dual role as government head and major fuel sector shareholder back under a public spotlight he has never fully escaped.

Morocco World News reported that Akhannouch expressed his opposition to the bills during parliamentary proceedings on June 16, dismissing the proposals as economically counter-productive and politically motivated. The bills were filed by opposition Members of Parliament who argue that the country's fuel sector has become a vehicle for enriching already-wealthy shareholders while ordinary Moroccans face some of the highest pump prices relative to income in the region.

The conflict of interest at the heart of the debate has defined Akhannouch's tenure as prime minister since his National Rally of Independents party won Morocco's September 2021 parliamentary election and he was appointed head of government by King Mohammed VI. Afriquia, the fuel distribution company his family controls, is the dominant player in Morocco's downstream petroleum market, operating the largest network of petrol stations in the country ahead of TotalEnergies and Shell.

Morocco liberalised its fuel market in 2015, removing subsidies that had kept prices below market rates. The reform was meant to be accompanied by social cash transfer programmes for the most vulnerable households. Critics say those transfers never fully materialised while fuel company margins expanded. By 2026, Morocco's Confederation of Very Small Enterprises and Self-Employed Workers warned that more than 60,000 businesses could fail in the year alone if no government intervention addressed fuel costs, and explicitly noted that a major shareholder in the fuel sector was simultaneously heading the government.

The Samir nationalisation bill targets Morocco's only oil refinery, which has been bankrupt and shut since 2015. The refinery's closure has left Morocco entirely dependent on imported refined petroleum products, concentrating pricing power in the hands of fuel distributors, including Afriquia. Opposition legislators argue that reopening Samir under state ownership would reduce that dependence and lower pump prices. Akhannouch has opposed the idea, arguing that state ownership of industrial assets carries fiscal risks the government is unwilling to assume.

Akhannouch was born in Tafraout, Morocco, on August 16, 1961, and built Afriquia into the country's leading fuel distribution group over several decades before entering politics. His family fortune, estimated by Forbes at approximately $1.6 billion, making him one of the wealthiest people in Morocco, is anchored primarily in the Akwa Group, the holding company through which Afriquia and other energy interests are controlled. He also served as Morocco's Minister of Agriculture from 2007 to 2021 before becoming prime minister.

The political controversy over fuel prices and the conflict of interest allegations are not new. In 2022, when global fuel prices surged following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, approximately 600,000 Moroccan social media accounts shared Arabic and French hashtags calling for Akhannouch to resign, arguing that he was profiting from the price surge through Afriquia while failing to intervene as head of government. He survived that campaign. The opposition's parliamentary bills represent a more institutionalised version of the same fundamental argument.