Business Corruption

Public procurement in Morocco is marked by a lack of transparency, lack of competition and collusion between public officials and the private sector in selection processes, as noted in the Transparency International Global Corruption Report 2009. This both increases the risk of corruption and may have serious consequences for the price and quality of the public services.

According to the US Department of State 2011, Morocco has sought, with limited success, to increase the transparency of its public tenders. However, recent efforts to decentralise the procurement process have seen only limited implementation, as suggested by the report. Companies are recommended to use a specialised public procurement due diligence tool in order to reduce corruption risks related to public procurement in Morocco.

See more on public procurement under 'Public Anti-Corruption Initiatives' in the Initiatives section.

Political Corruption

According to Transparency International's National Integrity System Morocco 2009 (in French), public procurement in Morocco is marred by corruption, for example in the form of giving gifts. Transparency Maroc also reports in Transparency News June 2009 (in French) that the public procurement sector suffers from several irregularities such as lack of access to information on tenders, disrespect of disclosure requirements and favouritism in the choice of bidders. In several cases, high-ranking public officials have been indicted with corruption charges, for example the Secretary General of the Ouad Ifrane municipality was revoked due to irregularities and the former mayor of Meknès was dismissed in 2009 by the Ministry of the Interior and sued for violating the regulations governing the award of public contracts.

According to Transparency International's Global Corruption Report 2007, military procurement contracts are not regulated by the law on public contracting, which entails a lack of oversight in this sector. The defence budget, which represents an important part of the state budget, is approved by the executive without being subject to debate in Parliament, and there is no transparency in the management of the defence budget.

Transparency International's Global Corruption Report 2007 further alleges that the construction of the large Hassan II mosque based on 'voluntary' contributions from the public and compulsory deductions of employees' salaries was marked by numerous irregularities.

Frequency

World Economic Forum: The Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011:
- Business executives give the diversion of public funds to companies, individuals, or groups due to corruption a score of 3.4 on a 7-point scale (1 'very common' and 7 'never occurs').

- Business executives give the favouritism of government officials when deciding upon policies and contracts a score of 3.3 on a 7-point scale (1 'always show favouritism' and 7 'never show favouritism').

The World Bank & IFC: Enterprise Surveys 2007:
- Only 6.4% of the surveyed companies expect to give gifts to win a government contract.

- The average value of a gift expected to secure a government contract is 0.29% of the contract value.