Political parties do the math
The Court of Auditors has just published the conclusions of its annual audit of political parties. The audit covered all the resources of the 27 political parties that submitted their accounts, including their own resources, as well as all their expenditure.
The Court, chaired by Zineb El Adaoui, also monitored the return of public support amounts to the Treasury, and identified declared income and expenditure with insufficient justification. Since 2021, parties have been able to provide their accounts via a digital platform set up by the Court. For this financial year, 24 parties submitted their annual accounts via this platform, while 3 others continued to file their accounts with the Court.
In detail, the Court’s audit concerns the 2023 financial year. The total resources declared by these political organizations amounted to 104.97 million Dirhams (USD 15 million). Government support accounted for 58%, or 60.48 million Dirhams, while own resources amounted to 44.49 million Dirhams (USD 4.5 million) (42%). Nevertheless, the highest financial jurisdiction points to a wide disparity in the dependence of parties on public funding. For five parties, public support represents 100% of their resources. For nine parties, public support ranges from 76% to 99%, and for 3 others from 36% to 57%. On the other hand, sixteen other parties did not receive any public funding, because they did not meet one or more of the legal conditions required for their participation in the 2021 legislative elections. These include MP, MDS, PSU, PMV, and other parties.
Own resources are down compared with 2022. They fell to 44.49 million Dirhams (USD 5 million), down 38% on the previous year. This amount is mainly made up of membership fees and other contributions (89%). Non-current income accounted for only 11%. Non-current income saw a significant drop of 75%, particularly for 4 major parties. For the PAM (Authenticity and Modernity Party), non-current income fell from 14.68 million Dirhams to 6,330 Dirhams (from USD 1.4 million to USD 633), for the USFP from 616,835 Dirhams to 75,315 Dirhams (USD 61,683 to USD 7,531), for the RNI ( National Rally of Independents) from 99,800 Dirhams to 3,500 Dirhams (from USD 9,980 to 350), and for the PJD from 70,424 to 18,699 Dirhams (from USD 7042 to 1870).
Public support budgeted in the 2023 Finance Law amounted to 140 million Dirhams. However, the support actually granted amounted to 60.38 million Dirhams, or 43% of the appropriations. Support was provided to 17 political organizations. The USFP ( Socialist Union of Popular Forces) received specific support to encourage the political representation of women, amounting to 100,813 Dirhams (USD 10,081).
In any case, total Government support for political parties is down 25.5% compared with 2022. This is due in particular to the non-payment of additional support to cover expenditure on missions, studies and research for the year 2023. The amounts received by the parties were used to cover management costs (99.21%), the contribution to cover the costs of organizing ordinary national congresses (0.62%), and support for women’s political representation (0.17%).
M.A.M
