The Moroccan government has reduced the annual budget allocated to the National Integrity and Anti-Corruption Agency by approximately 60 million dirhams. The agency’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year now stands at a total of 210 million and 178 thousand dirhams, down from 269 million and 386 thousand dirhams in 2024.
Mohamed Bachir Errachdi, the head of the agency, explained the budget details on Friday during his presentation to the Financial and Economic Development Committee of the House of Representatives.
He noted that the budget for 2025 follows a multi-year financial program (2025-2027), with funds distributed across different sections. Specifically, 114 million dirhams are allocated for staff salaries, while 46.35 million dirhams are earmarked for equipment and other miscellaneous expenses.
For investment, Errachdi indicated that the agency’s investment budget amounts to 28.83 million dirhams under performance credits, with an additional 21 million dirhams set aside for commitment credits.
During the same session, Errachdi reiterated concerns about the National Anti-Corruption Strategy, adopted in 2015, which is based on ten key programs. He pointed out that the strategy remains “flawed in terms of coherence, integration, and implementation,” which led the agency to call, since 2019, for a comprehensive restructuring of the strategy, despite it being founded on solid principles.
He explained that these issues have resulted in a lack of systematic coordination to ensure consistency and effectiveness, with sectoral approaches dominating, and many projects being unrelated to the strategy’s main goals. This, he said, has contributed to weak governance, lack of coordination, and failure to effectively lead the programs.
Errachdi further noted that the objectives of the anti-corruption strategy “appear to be out of reach,” pointing to the “limited impact” on citizens and economic actors despite some acknowledged achievements. He also highlighted that various actions have been fragmented within individual ministries, with “vertical work” isolated within each sector, and significant gaps in addressing key issues such as political and electoral integrity.
He went on to say that the strategy’s coverage of essential issues related to corruption was insufficient, leading to gaps in the overall approach. The lack of coordination has affected the ability to implement projects and prioritize them effectively. He emphasized that “sectoral and fragmented execution” does not align with the comprehensive vision required for effective anti-corruption efforts.
Errachdi stressed the importance of collective action to fight corruption and its socio-economic consequences, including “reducing productive capacity, undermining merit, and increasing inequalities,” as well as “wasting resources and hindering development.”
He pointed out that Morocco had dropped by one point in the corruption index, and that corruption results in a 2% decline in national GDP, estimating the annual cost of corruption to be 50 billion dirhams.
The head of the agency concluded by emphasizing that corruption reinforces the informal economy, exacerbates related inequalities, and undermines investment. “Investment in a country plagued by corruption can be up to 20% more expensive,” he said, adding that corruption “stifles individual initiative and limits potential.”
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