Morocco: Details of the Court of Auditors’ report on the accounts of Moroccan political parties

The Court of Auditors announced Tuesday the publication of a report on the audit of the accounts of political parties and the verification of the sincerity of their expenditure under the support granted by the State, for the contribution to cover their management costs and the organisation of their ordinary national congresses for the financial year 2019. Drawn up in accordance with the provisions of Article 147 of the Constitution, Article 44 of Organic Law No. 29-11 on political parties and Article 3 of Law No. 62-99 forming the Code of Financial Jurisdictions, this report shows that, according to statements by political parties, resources totalled an amount of 127.39 million dirhams (MDH), against expenditure of 145.73 MDH, the Court of Auditors said in a statement.

“With regard to the production of the annual accounts, it should be noted that thirty-two parties out of thirty-four submitted their accounts to the Court. On the other hand, the Liberal Moroccan Party and the National Union of Popular Forces Party have not fulfilled this obligation”, the same source states.

The auditing of the accounts of political parties and the verification of the sincerity of their expenditure has thus made it possible to identify several observations. “In accordance with the laws and regulations in force, some parties have proceeded to return to the Treasury a total amount of 5.07 MAD 5.07 MAD in 2019 and 7.08 MAD 7.08 MAD in 2020. However, other parties have not returned to the Treasury a total amount of 13.75 million dirhams”, the Court of Auditors noted. This is the amount of undue support (difference between the advance paid to the party and the amount of support due to it in view of the results of the election concerned), unused (difference between the amount of support granted and the amount of expenses incurred) or used for purposes not provided for by the regulations in force) or not supported by supporting documents, says the report.

Regarding the certification of accounts by chartered accountants, the report indicates that it was found that among the 32 parties that produced their accounts, 28 produced certified accounts, 26 of which were unqualified and 02 with reservations, while 03 parties produced chartered accountants’ reports that did not comply with standard 5700 of the manual of legal and contractual auditing standards, established by the National Council of the Moroccan Order of Chartered Accountants. He added that one party produced its account not certified by a chartered accountant, while 05 parties did not produce all the tables forming the statement of supplementary information (ETIC) stipulated by the joint order of the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Economy and Finance No. 1078-09 on the standard chart of accounts for political parties.

The Court of Auditors also points out that four parties did not produce all the statements concerning their bank accounts, three did not produce the statement of supporting documents provided for in Article 44 of the above-mentioned Organic Law No. 29-11 and one party recorded in the table of “public funding” and the income and expenses account, the state’s contribution to women’s capacity building, although its bank statements “do not show any operations relating to this contribution”.

The institution also points out that 08 parties kept their accounts in accordance with the general code of accounting standards without taking into account the adjustments stipulated by the standard chart of accounts of political parties, while ten did not enter, in the “State-creditor” balance sheet account, the amounts of support they are supposed to return to the Treasury, while three parties made cash payments. And to specify that two parties presented tables forming the statement of additional information that did not conform to the models annexed to the joint order of the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of the Economy and Finance No. 1078-09 that was issued, one party only charged to the “Public funding” account the difference between the amounts of support received and those returned to the Treasury, while another party only charged to the said account the difference between the amounts of support received and those to be returned to the Treasury.

The report also notes that two parties did not charge certain income or expenses to the appropriate accounts and that one party produced summary statements that did not include balances from the previous year; similarly, the balances from the 2018 balance sheet accounts were not included at the beginning of the 2019 financial year. On the expenditure side, an amount of MAD 2.34 million was the subject of observations by the Court of Auditors, i.e. 1.6% of total declared expenditure, compared with 2.72% in 2018 and 5.55% in 2017. These observations concern expenditure not supported by supporting documents (81.03%), expenditure supported by insufficient supporting documents (2.06%) and expenditure justified by documents not made out in the name of the parties (16.91%).

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