Morocco: Billions spent on fictitious studies

The General Inspectorate of Finance has just completed a series of audits on the expert contracts concluded by 13 public institutions and companies with Moroccan and foreign consulting firms. According to the reports, significant budgets have been allocated to studies whose necessity is not demonstrated. Worse, the same missions are repeated and certain firms monopolize the contracts, despite the government’s warnings against excessive use of external expertise to the detriment of the skills of public administrations.

According to sources close to the case cited by Hespress, these reports cover "fictitious" study and expertise contracts that have swallowed up billions of dirhams. The inspectors suspect collusion between public officials and certain privileged companies. One consulting firm in particular has won contracts in five public institutions over the past four years, which reveals complicity with certain officials.

The audit missions, which lasted several weeks, looked into the actual quality of these studies. The inspectors concluded that some do not provide any added scientific value, while others are merely copies of academic work and research that were gathering dust in university drawers, used without the authorization of their authors and in violation of intellectual property rules. The reports also deplore the absence of a central database listing all these studies and the topics covered.

The inspectors discovered that some studies were carried out after the expiration of the deadline for the projects they were supposed to accompany, which calls into question their usefulness. The collected data highlights suspicions of suspicious relationships between public officials and consulting firms that sweep up the majority of budgets. The investigation even extended to parliamentarians and former ministers who, when they headed public institutions or municipal councils, collaborated with these same firms.

However, the government had sounded the alarm. A circular from the Prime Minister’s Office had emphasized the importance of favoring the internal skills of public administrations and submitting all calls for study tenders to prior authorization. It also called for a rationalization of expenditures and warned against the repetition of studies on the same subjects without valid reason.