afrol News, 1 November - A new report on Moroccan efforts to fight corruption is highly critical on the government's dedication. The report asks Rabat authorities to regard corruption as plague and barrier to the development and therefore urged Moroccan government to put in place effective legislations that allows corruption to be fought in a transparent manner.

The large and deep-ploughing report was issued yesterday, by the world's leader in the fight against corruption, Berlin-based Transparency International (TI).

In the report, the North African country is also asked to change its practices and perceptions towards corruption. The Moroccan government is accused of not creating space that allows civil society organisations in the fight against corruption to operate.

Though Morocco is a signatory to the UN convention against corruption, it is yet to domesticate it. And the country's penal codes - 241 and 256 - levy harsh punishment on civil servants found to be corrupt, yet corruption triumphs in the kingdom.

Morocco is accused of infringing the articles of the conventions, as it allows corruption to flourish through illicit enrichment in trading and hide these acts. In general, in Morocco there exist little legal provisions that aim to prevent corruption because the government seems to have adopted another strategy to fight corruption and deviated from its preliminary draft law, the TI analysis found.

TI asked the Moroccan government to create an agency to fight corruption, put in place effective measures that control civil servants from accepting favours and improve conditions and management of public markets. "In fact, improvement has been made in this area, but corruption is yet to disappear," the report added.

Morocco was also pinned down for creating an anti-corruption body that has a vague mission, insufficiently represented and subject to partiality in its operations. "It was also stripped off the capacity to observe and continue to monitor infringements in the system."

However, the report praised Morocco for adding laws relating to the fight against terrorism into its penal code. Some of the articles devoted to the detection of movements and seizure of funds related to terrorism.

Those found guilty of money laundering would be punished with prison terms of between two and five years plus a minimum fine of 20,000 and maximum of 100,000 dirhams (euro 1,800 to 9,000).

On the other hand, the government of Morocco is accused of having laws that exist in theory instead of practice.

At the moment, the law on money laundering in Morocco is before the commission of justice and legislation for examination. The law which entails 39 articles empowers the Prime Minister to supervise a central processing unit that will be in charge of the financial data.

TI blamed countries in the Middle East and North Africa, such as Morocco in particular, for having non-democratic government structures, coupled with little manoeuvring space for civil society amid stagnant, heavily state-managed.

The report said the civil society in this region showed an increasing willingness to take up the issues of corruption and institutional reform. This, according to the report, was evidenced by the existence of numerous international donors keen to encourage and assist civil society.

With the emergence of a new generation of leaders more inclined towards reforms and modernisation in the region, political atmosphere had opened up, TI held. Despite the difficult socio-political conditions, the release stated, TI networks in the Mddle East and North African region had raised awareness of people through education on corruption. This finally had led to the accreditation of TI-Morocco and TI-Lebanon.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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