This meeting, the first of its kind, had the objective of raising awareness among elected officials and executives of national local authorities about the importance and role of internal audit for risk management in municipal administration. It aims, more particularly, to encourage municipalities to engage in the process of implementing internal audit within the municipal administration, as an essential tool for improving transparency and accountability. During his introductory speech, Zineb El Adaoui, Wali of the Gharb-Chrarda-Beni Hssen region, Governor of the Kenitra province, estimated that a transparent and responsible democratic local governance would further consolidate the feeling of trust among investors and would allow for the attraction of the necessary resources in favour of local development. “It will also contribute to the emergence of a new local elite, by encouraging young people to get involved in municipal life. The internal control mechanism is a sine qua non condition for performance, necessary for economic and social development, for the preservation of the environment, and for respect for ethics,” she stressed in essence.

The new ambassador of the United States of America to Morocco, Dwight L. Bush, declared for his part on this occasion that internal audit aimed at strengthening the principles of transparency, evaluating the measures taken, and consolidating the culture of accountability. Dwight L. Bush considers internal audit as an operational tool aimed at guaranteeing local governance and allowing the presidents of local authorities to better manage the internal resources of their municipalities. Let us recall that the desire to establish the principles of good governance in municipal management was one of the major objectives of the 2009 municipal charter reform. Indeed, this reform introduced important improvements concerning many aspects of municipal management aimed at ensuring better performance of local authorities, rationalisation of administrative work, as well as better stability of the municipal executive. The objective sought was to strengthen their capacity to plan and implement adapted municipal development plans, to improve the services offered to citizens, and to ensure rational and transparent management of the resources at their disposal. Questions for Noureddine Lazrak, President of the urban commune of Salé: “The conclusions of the internal audit could be made available to the public” How was your initiative to proceed with an audit in the framework of a partnership with the USAID-Morocco Local Governance Programme (LGP) received by the members of the Municipal Council?

In our case, and even before joining the Local Governance Programme (LGP) in the framework of a partnership with USAID-Morocco, the City Council had the firm conviction to adopt all modern management techniques likely to improve local public service.

Thus, the Commune, elected officials and civil servants, welcomed the creation of an administrative entity in charge of internal audit without any worry or scepticism. Moreover, on the occasion of the audit missions already accomplished by the said entity, the audited services showed themselves to be very cooperative.

However, it must be specified that the partnership of the urban commune of Salé with the USAID-MOROCCO LGP essentially aims at the establishment and promotion of the internal audit approach in the commune of Salé and not the realisation of audit missions, which remains the prerogative of municipal executives. Nevertheless, in a specific case, the commune can outsource audit operations. Many municipalities lack qualified human resources and adequate financial means. They also suffer from organisational and transparency problems. What would be the contribution of this audit to improving the performance of the municipalities?

Concerning this question, the urban commune of Salé is among the most important communes in the Kingdom due to its demography, its historical heritage, etc. It has a potential of technical and administrative executives responsible for the management of the commune's affairs and the execution of the budget. This being so, internal audit contributes through its evaluations and recommendations to the effective management of the Commune and to the execution of the President's control prerogatives by verifying to what extent operations are carried out in accordance with the laws, regulations, and procedures applicable to the commune. Will the results of the audit be made available to the public or is it only an internal procedure?

On the legal level, nothing requires the commune to make the results of audit missions public since it is an internal procedure. Nevertheless, and in the framework of transparency, the conclusions of the internal audit could be made available to the public.