Morocco’s Government Ratifies Bill of National Authority for Integrity and the Prevention and Combating of Bribery

Morocco - Monday, July 7, 2014

Following extensive consultations involving a number stakeholders, the Moroccan Government ratified on 26 June 2014 the bill of the "National Authority for Integrity and the Prevention and Combating of Bribery". The Bill aims to replace the "Central Authority for Corruption Prevention" established in 2007 with the "National Authority for Integrity and the Prevention and Combating of Bribery", thereby activating Article 36 of the newly amended Constitution of 2011, and expanding the powers of the Authority while strengthening its independence. Key points in the Bill include delinking the Authority from the Head of Government, making it an independent Authority whose President is appointed by the King, assigning it with new tasks, namely that of receiving corruption related complaints, studying, investigating and referring them to the competent authorities; and strengthening other previously existing functions and especially awareness and prevention. Another remarkable aspect of the Bill is its establishment of a national observatory charged with developing a national database on corruption manifestations in the public and private sectors, tracking related public policies and analyzing the various manifestations of corruption to better combat them. Authors of the Bill benefited from a series of consultations and training activities which presented related international standards and good practices and lessons learned from comparative experiences. UNDP’s Regional Project on Anti-Corruption and Integrity in the Arab Countries (UNDP-ACIAC) supported these efforts, namely through the organization of workshops and the provision of technical advice. Next steps include the presentation of the Bill in Parliament for its discussion and ratification, knowing that, despite significant improvements brought forward by the new text, a number of observations have been noted about it, including those of Transparency Morocco with regards to the independence of the new Authority and its effectiveness and investigative powers.

Source: UNDP’s Regional Project on Anti-Corruption and Integrity in the Arab countries