Audit Court Exposes Shortcomings of Business Incubators Program Worth 160 Mln MAD

Court of Audit Head, Zineb El Adaoui, expressed concern at the Parliament on Tuesday over flaws exposed in the national program of business incubators. The government had previously allocated a financial budget valued at 160 million MAD within the framework of 36 partnership agreements aimed at establishing incubators across the Kingdom, along with temporary spaces for contractors.
Out of the 36 nurseries, only 27 were completed, with a financial cost of 281.85 million MAD, of which the Youth Employment Promotion Fund contributed 158.45 million MAD, declared Al Adaoui.
Five completed incubators costing 34.36 million dirhams have been completed but are not yet up-and-running, while 17 incubators costing 206.85 million MAD are partially operational at an average operating rate of 72 percent. The procedural timeline for two additional incubators was suspended after an investment of more than 24.69 million MAD.
Additionally, three completed incubators were reassigned to other activities.
According to the speaker, only 87 out of 4,000 targeted incubators have been established, and the program’s employment goals have to this point proven a distant reality, in the creation of only 2,765 job opportunities out of the anticipated 40,000.
Pitfalls of the initiative can be blamed on several planning and monitoring deficiencies, including but not limited to the absence of feasibility studies, a lack of central and local governance bodies to lead the program, partnership agreements that have failed to deliver on indicators and project objectives, and a lack of mechanisms to monitor and support beneficiaries, explained the Head of Court.