PEFA assessment: Lekjaa notes “high performance” of public finance management

Morocco confirms its trajectory of continuous improvement in the transparency and performance of its public finance management system, affirmed, Friday in Rabat, the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Economy and Finance, in charge of the Budget , Fouzi Lekjaa.

Speaking at a workshop dedicated to the dissemination of the results of the PEFA 2023 (Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability) assessment, organized by the Ministry of Economy and Finance in partnership with the World Bank, the African Bank of Development, the European Union and the French Development Agency, Mr. Lekjaa indicated that this evaluation, covering the period 2020-2022, revealed a high performance of the public finance management system in Morocco, since the previous evaluation .

These achievements demonstrate Morocco’s continued commitment to improving the performance and transparency of the public finance management system, noted Mr. Lekjaa.

Thus, the report underlines “the credibility of our budgetary forecasts, which results directly from the clarity of our objectives. We know where we are and where we are going in the years to come, and the programs and objectives to be achieved by 2030 are now well defined and agreed,” he said.

Furthermore, the minister noted that this report also made it possible to identify areas requiring improvement, particularly in terms of reducing the deadlines for publication of the settlement law and the establishment of guidelines governing the programming of investment projects, including examination of gender impact.

For his part, the Director of Operations of the World Bank for the Maghreb, Moustapha Ndiaye, highlighted the importance of the PEFA framework, which has established itself for more than 20 years as an international standard for the diagnosis of the management of public finances, with a view to harmonizing evaluation methods.

“Today, PEFA is adopted by more than 150 countries and it makes it possible to evaluate the performance of the public finance management system on the basis of its own elements, which constitutes a privileged tool for dialogue around reform priorities public finances and planning their implementation,” he explained.

For Morocco, the PEFA assessment was carried out by adopting an agile approach, he said, adding that more than 60% of public finance management indicators obtained the highest grades, from A to B and B+, thus demonstrating the solidity of the Moroccan public finance management system.

Mr. Ndiaye, at the same time, reaffirmed the responsibility of the World Bank as leader of the technical and financial partners, as well as that of all the partners present, to support Morocco in the different phases of implementation. implementation of current public finance management reform projects and programs and those resulting from the action plan resulting from this evaluation.

Third evaluation carried out in Morocco, after those of 2009 and 2016, PEFA 2023 is based on the objective analysis of 31 indicators, grouped around 7 pillars, covering three major objectives of the evaluation, namely budgetary discipline, allocation resource strategy and efficiency in the use of resources for service delivery.

This edition introduced, for the first time, an additional module assessing gender-sensitive public finance management, demonstrating the performance achieved.

Covering the period 2020-2022, the assessment revealed an overall high performance of the public financial management system in Morocco since the previous assessment, where 9 indicators showed positive progress and 10 indicators maintained the same performance.

In addition to the performance achieved in integrating gender into budgetary programming, the PEFA report highlighted several aspects, including the credibility of budgetary forecasts, transparency in grant transfers, the implementation of an approach focused on on the performance and efficiency of debt management procedures.

He also highlighted the rigorous monitoring of financial assets, the remarkable development in the public procurement system, the reliability of quarterly reports on budget execution, the high integrity of financial data and the high credibility of the Court of Auditors.

LNT with MAP