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All the fuss that accompanied the creation of the parliamentary inquiry commission on the ONMT last year was just a sham. The presentation of the report by Wafae El Quadi, member of the UMT parliamentary group of the House of Councilors, did not note any misappropriation in the management of public funds but has laid bare a situation of the Office which is explained by the accumulation of problems over a long period. Finally, the outgoing director of the Office Abderrafie Zouitène, who was the subject of political cross-fire, escaped unscathed from this parliamentary inquiry. Its predecessors are also in the same situation, although the survey period ran from 2010 to 2017, when only two DGs succeeded each other at the head of the Office. In any case, the Commission of Inquiry found aberrations relating to the status of the Office, managed according to an old text of 40 years, which does not allow a better accompaniment of the challenges and rapid evolutions of the tourist markets. So, we have to redesign these texts. Ditto for the Management Commission, decided by the Board of Directors in 1974, but which has never been activated. The ONMT suffers from the complexity of the procedures that it is necessary to simplify and modernize to be in tune with countries with high tourist value. In fact, the Commission has recommended the need for a clear procedural guide to ensure modern financial management of the Office. The Commission has also focused on the financial management of the ONMT, which faces the lack of a constant budget for the development of the sector. According to the 2020 vision, the Office needed a budget of 1.3 billion dirhams per year to implement its action plan. In reality, he was only entitled to half.
Unjustified Increase in Certain Operating Expenses
Promotional expenditures, including communication and partnership programs, represent only 1.5% of tourism receipts at the time when international standards impose a target of 3%, read in the report of the Commission. Wafae El Quadi spoke of the lack of rationality of the aid given to the air. It recalls that the Office does not collect all the taxes that come from the nights, up to 190 million DH per year. In reality, the amounts collected do not exceed 120 million DH, with a loss of 70 million dirhams per year.
In addition, the Board's debt has increased because of the non-payment of installments in time, sometimes reaching 200 days late. This imposes on the budget of the Office to bear penalties of delay. The report also noted dysfunctions in the management of trade shows abroad, as the funds allocated to this mission increased while the rented areas shrank. Added to this is the anarchy and mismanagement that characterize them, notes the report. This document raised an unjustified increase in certain operating expenses, such as the monthly rental of the DG's office accommodation estimated at 50,000 DH. Ditto for renting delegations abroad which cost 10 million DH per year.
At the level of the administrative management of the Office, the Commission has noted a deficit of resources in the delegations abroad, with only 2 to 3 officials per delegation, which has a negative impact on its profitability. The Office was particularly pinned on its refusal to submit to the Commission of Inquiry "the reports of studies carried out at exorbitant prices". She noted the Office's inability to support the development of the tourism market in terms of marketing. Communication and coordination between the supervising Minister, Chairman of the ONMT Board, and the DG of the Office, do not work very well. A DG which alone takes over the appointments of directors at the level of the Office. As she noted the lack of control of the ministries of Interior, Finance and Tourism on including ryads and guest houses.
A misfortune never arrives alone: the Commission noted the absence of a committee in charge of crisis management, the weakness of transparency and consultation with professionals. The impact of advertising during holidays, a period of peaks in tourist visits, is negative. These advertising campaigns must focus on periods of stagnation of activity. For the Commission, the Agency has other responsibilities such as aviation and air links, which have become the main concerns in recent times. She pointed out the lack of convergence in the strategies and visions of the Office, the SMIT and the RAM.
In order to remedy these shortcomings, the Commission drew up nine recommendations, the first of which was concerns the revision of the legal framework organizing the Office so that it is in tune with the tourist market. To accompany and implement the decisions of the Board of Directors, it is imperative to update its composition by strengthening the representativeness of the professionals and by setting up an executive committee. The idea is to develop the Office's governance system by setting up a strategic watch and a crisis management system, as well as monitoring and evaluating profitability.
In addition, the Commission recommended unifying public bodies related to the tourism sector within a single structure. The idea is to merge the ONMT and the SMIT, with the aim of generalizing this measure to all public institutions responsible for promoting Morocco.
Hearing officials
The Commission of Inquiry, chaired by Hassan Abbadi, PJD parliamentarian reviewed several accounting documents, a summary of the Court of Auditors' report on the ONMT published in 2013, in addition to the presentations made during the hearing sessions. Its members listened to several officials, including the Minister of Tourism, as Chairman of the Board, the acting Director of the ONMT, the successive Directors of the Office from 2010 to 2017, the Deputy Director of the DEPP, and former representative of the Ministry of Finance on the board of the Office, 3 representatives of professionals at the Board level of the Office. On this list, several presidents of sectoral organizations. The Commission drafted minutes of meetings, in addition to the recording of 8 CDs. She worked for 42 hours spread over 20 meetings, 9 of which were devoted to hearing sessions, not counting the time spent in the counting of documents and reports.
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