RABAT – A Moroccan government minister will resign after coming under pressure for showing sympathy with a consumer boycott campaign targeting some of the country’s top brands, his party said on Wednesday.
Lahcen Daoudi Governance minister of the co-ruling PJD Islamist party is the first causality of the campaign started by Centrale-Danone workers calling on consumers to end the boycott, which the government fears will damage the wider economy.
Daoudi showed up at the night sit-in, the campaign which has forced dairy firm Centrale-Danone, part of France’s Danone, to cut production and lay off workers.
PJD general secretariat said in a statement issued following a remarkable meeting chaired by Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani, said, ‘The participation of brother Lahcen Daoudi in the sit-in in question is unreasonable and inappropriate.”
The secretariat added that its members “appreciate that brother Lahcen Daoudi asked to be dismissed from his ministerial responsibility.”
Reuters is reporting that when Daoudi was contacted for comment he did not answer his phone.
The boycott was launched on April 20 and has also targeted friquia fuel stations owned by billionaire minister Aziz Akhanouch and the Sidi Ali mineral water brand.
Since the boycott campaign Centrale Danone has had their sales cut by half, the current figures will be 150 million Moroccan dirham ($15.89 million) loss in the first half.
Photo Credit- Egypt Today
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