Court of Auditors: 15 Parties Failed to Return More than 21 Million Dirhams in Public Funding
Rabat – The Court of Auditors has released its annual report on the audit of political parties’ accounts for 2023, which included an examination of expenditures funded by public money and monitored the compliance of parties with previous recommendations, following the provisions of the constitution and regulatory laws.
The Council received accounts from 27 out of 33 parties, with 22 adhering to the legal deadline, while six parties failed to submit their accounts. Among the parties that did submit their accounts, 23 provided statements verified by a certified accountant, 19 of which were without reservations, while four had qualifications, and no professional entity validated the accounts of four parties.
The Council noted the absence of mandatory financial tables from seven parties, three parties did not provide their bank statements, and three others did not attach details of their expenditures or their bank statuses.
The report identified discrepancies in the reported self-generated resources of eight parties, totaling 1.72 million dirhams, including 853,000 dirhams without legal documentation and 866,000 dirhams collected in cash, exceeding the legally established ceiling.
Expenditures lacking supporting documents reached 5.73 million dirhams, equivalent to 6.27% of the total disbursed. This figure marked a significant decrease compared to 26% in 2022. The deficiencies affected 17 parties, including unjustified expenses (5.34 million dirhams) and others documented with incomplete or non-compliant papers (approximately 383,000 dirhams).
From 2022 until March 2025, 24 parties returned a total of 35.92 million dirhams to the state treasury, including campaign support, management expenses, and research tasks. In contrast, 15 parties failed to return amounts exceeding 21.96 million dirhams, most of which were linked to the 2015 and 2021 elections and expenditures from multiple years between 2017 and 2023.
The report also noted accounting errors in 23 parties, including failure to record the amounts of support that should be refunded, errors in accounting transactions, and violations of unified accounting plan provisions, alongside inaccuracies in the final balances reported by two parties.
Regarding the implementation of recommendations related to additional support for 2022, the report indicated that the Council received results from only three parties, while four other parties returned 2.03 million dirhams of unused support.
The complete report and its summaries are available on the official website of the Court of Auditors: www.courdescomptes.ma.
