In October 2024, Morocco's Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch appointed a new Health Minister. His name was Amine Tahraoui. He had never practiced medicine. He had never run a hospital. He had never worked in healthcare.

What he had done was spend years running companies owned by Akhannouch and his wife. And that, apparently, was qualification enough.

Less than a year later, eight pregnant women died in Moroccan public hospitals within a single month — largely from preventable causes. The country exploded in the biggest protests it had seen in a decade. And the Health Minister who was supposed to fix the system found himself at the center of a scandal he couldn't manage his way out of.

The Appointment That Raised Eyebrows

When King Mohammed VI received Tahraoui in Rabat on October 23, 2024, to confirm his appointment, the reaction from the Moroccan press was immediate and skeptical. Jeune Afrique described him as "the protégé of Aziz Akhannouch." Alestiklal called it "a cabinet of controversy."

Tahraoui's resume was impressive — in business. He had been General Director of the Aksal Group (Akhannouch's holding company) since 2012. Before that, he held strategic positions at Akwa Group, the energy and fuel giant that is 67% owned by Akhannouch's family. He was a banker, a manager, a corporate executive — exactly the kind of person you'd want running a Fortune 500 subsidiary.

But running a country's healthcare system, where millions of Moroccans rely on underfunded public hospitals for their survival? That's a very different skillset.

Opposition parties immediately cried foul. The PJD's parliamentary group pointed out that Tahraoui's entire career had been inside the Akhannouch business empire. How could a man whose salary came from the Prime Minister's own companies be expected to make independent decisions about healthcare spending, drug procurement, and hospital management?

The answer, critics said, was that he couldn't. And that was the point.

How Bad Was Morocco's Healthcare System?

Even before Tahraoui took office, Morocco's public hospitals were in crisis. Decades of underfunding, corruption, and mismanagement had left facilities crumbling. A France 24 investigation from October 2025 detailed:

• Shortages of basic medicines and medical supplies
• Hospitals with broken equipment that went unrepaired for months
• Sanitation issues so severe that patients risked infection simply by being admitted
• Staff working double shifts with no overtime pay
• Corruption in procurement — supplies ordered but never delivered, budgets allocated but never spent on actual care

This wasn't new. Moroccans had been living with it for years. What changed in 2025 was the body count.

The Eight Women

Between late August and late September 2025, eight pregnant women died in different public hospitals across Morocco. Each death followed a similar pattern: the woman arrived at the hospital in distress, waited hours for care, and died from complications that should have been treatable.

One video that went viral showed a woman bleeding on a gurney in a hospital corridor, ignored by staff who were either overwhelmed, indifferent, or both. She died before anyone saw her.

Moroccans were furious. On TikTok, the hashtag #GenZ212 began trending. Anonymous organizers started coordinating on Discord servers. By September 27, 2025, hundreds of thousands of people were in the streets.

One of their primary demands: the resignation of Health Minister Amine Tahraoui. Alongside PM Akhannouch, he was the face of a system that killed mothers and let no one take responsibility.

Tahraoui's Response

Tahraoui didn't resign. Instead, he went on a media offensive, talking about "structural reform" and "the government's commitment to universal health coverage." He acknowledged "chronic and accumulated deficiencies" but insisted the government was fixing them.

Meanwhile, reports emerged that Tahraoui had been recruiting staff from Akhannouch's office to fill key positions in the Health Ministry. Africa Intelligence reported in November 2024 that his new chief of staff was Moncif Amezane, a 36-year-old who had previously worked in Akhannouch's office on "health system reform."

The pattern was clear: Akhannouch's people, running Akhannouch's health policy, overseen by Akhannouch's former employee. It wasn't a government — it was a corporate organizational chart with a government stamp on it.

Then Came the Potassium Chloride Scandal

In October 2025, while protests were still raging, Tahraoui was hit with another controversy. He was accused of scrapping a previous deal to digitize Moroccans' health data and seeking a new contract with an American company — bypassing local providers and raising questions about procurement transparency.

MPs from the opposition grilled him in parliament. Tahraoui rejected the accusations, but the damage was done. The Health Minister who was supposed to be fixing the system was spending his time defending procurement decisions and hiring his boss's former staffers.

The outcome? The $15 billion health and education pledge the King announced in response to the protests. More money flowing into a system that was still run by the same people who broke it.

Where Are They Now?

Amine Tahraoui is still Health Minister. Akhannouch is still Prime Minister. The Gen Z protests have cooled, but the conditions that sparked them haven't changed.

Public hospitals are still overcrowded. Medical supplies are still scarce. The same committee that approved Tahraoui's appointment is still in charge of healthcare policy. And this fall, Morocco goes to the polls — where voters will have a chance to decide whether they want more of the same.

But here's the uncomfortable question nobody in Rabat wants to answer: even if the government changes in September, what's stopping the next Prime Minister from doing the same thing? Appointing a friend, a business partner, a loyalist, to run a ministry they know nothing about?

In Morocco, that's not a bug. It's how the system was designed.