World Bank loan to Morocco for the New Development Model
Morocco has just received a $450 million loan from the World Bank. The Alawi country aims to use this money for the Public Sector Performance Programme in Morocco, to improve the transparency of government and public operations. The programme, under the name Ennajaa, will be led by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, together with the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The new improvements will start to be rolled out from the beginning of next year, with an end date of 2055. The government, for its part, expects a cost of $675 million to put the project into operation.
The loan is part of the Kingdom's objective in the implementation of its New Development Model, imposed by the last government that came to power a few months ago. With it, a digital transformation and modernisation of the system and the administration will be carried out, which is a new key step in the process of making further changes for future updates. On the other hand, it also aims to address the problem of gaps in the implementation of the public sector reform that are causing major problems in carrying out any kind of administrative act or movement.
According to the Moroccan government, the money will be divided into three main areas in accordance with the objectives of the programme and the development model. The first of these will be to improve the efficiency of public spending. The programme will focus on the 2015 Finance Law, and, based on this, will aim to fix the system that controls public spending. The law seven years ago introduced a new budget architecture, which was based on public policy programmes. It has laid the foundations for results-based public management.
In addition, the adoption of the performance approach in the relevant ministries and regions in charge of these transactions has also been taken into account. To this end, an attempt will be made to integrate a good dialogue on how to manage the process, the improvement of the quality of the indicators, and, in turn, an attempt to strengthen these discussions during their ex-post evaluation. The programme will also address the existing contract between Morocco and the Fez-Meknes region, which is based on reducing environmental and social risks, as it has a budget earmarked to address the climate and environmental situation. In addition, the focus here will be on promoting the availability of public procurement data, which will improve the transparency and efficiency of markets, in addition to attracting investors who can bring economic benefits to the Kingdom.
Secondly, money will be earmarked to improve public revenue collection. This will be done by upgrading more effective risk and non-compliance management, increasing taxpayer compliance and the way tax revenues are collected. The Directorate General of Taxes, the General Treasury of the Kingdom and the Directorate General of Local Entities will collaborate to update the distribution of functions in the management of local taxation, while a new local tax governance framework will be deployed.
Finally, the system and the basis for digital transformation will be improved. This last point of the programme aims to upgrade interoperability through the establishment of a platform that will enhance the improvement of data exchange and interoperability of information systems provided in government systems. Another objective is to promote the Open Data programme, by virtue of supporting Morocco's commitments with other countries, following the recommendations provided by the bank on the evolution of open data readiness.
