Following the meeting held by the Moroccan Confederation of VSEs-SMEs on Wednesday, January 12, 2022 by videoconference relating to the accompaniment, support of VSEs-SMEs as well as the new programs of the new government following 100 days of its exercise, the Confederation has noted the following:
– After the 100 days of the new government, the experience of the former government of Benkirane occurs with the creation of a ministry of PE without any concrete program, vision, or means to help the millions of VSEs-SMEs and autoentrepreneurs who constitute more than 95% of the economic fabric of Morocco and who are the first employers of the Kingdom. The majority of these companies are weakened and threatened with bankruptcy because of the negligence of the public authorities and lack of support. The economic crisis caused by the Coronavirus has caused thousands of job losses due to the bankruptcies of VSEs-SMEs and Autoentrepreneurs who found themselves alone in the face of this crisis.
– This new government wants to exclude millions of VSEs and autoentrepreneurs from the services of the ”National Agency for Support to Small and Medium Enterprises” (Morocco PME) without any alternative. This agency will only take care of almost 30,000 SMEs, while 4 million VSEs are left behind. This is why the Moroccan Confederation of VSEs-SMEs calls for the creation of the National Agency for the Support and Accompaniment of VSEs (Morocco TPE).
– This ministry of the PE does not pay attention to the many calls of the Confederation to take its responsibilities and save thousands of TPE and AE threatened with bankruptcy because of the lack of support especially in this period of suffocating crisis.
According to the Confederation, the objective of the creation of a Ministry of Small Business (PE) in this government is none other than for ”local consumption” without any concrete program to help this category of businesses like this. was the case during the Benkirane government where the disappearance of the Ministry of SMEs was recorded from the first amendment.
The Confederation also notes with regret the delay of the INTELAKA financing program and the dissatisfaction with the results of this program through the numerous complaints as well as the delay in the processing of files which in some cases reached more than 18 months. Not to mention the large number of projects that were rejected without any justification. In addition, this program has experienced numerous violations by bankers and some beneficiaries of this program, which has led to legal proceedings once morest bankers and entrepreneurs in the courts.
In the absence of a clear vision of the INTELAKA program, the Confederation calls on the head of government Aziz Akhannouch to ensure, in an effective and efficient manner, to give new impetus to this royal program through the establishment of a national follow-up committee for this program as proposed last year following thousands of complaints that the Confederation receives from the four corners of the country.
This INTELAKA program monitoring committee must be composed of: the Prime Minister, Bank Al Maghreb, the GPBM, the Ministry of Finance, the CGEM and the Moroccan Confederation of VSEs-SMEs. This committee will monitor this royal program and receive complaints from beneficiaries.
The same source also appealed to the banks for a positive and responsible cooperation with the requests of small entrepreneurs, project leaders and self-employed entrepreneurs without procrastination in the study of files and by quickly releasing loans in order to avoid the scenario old programs, notably Crédit Jeunes Promoteurs and Moukawalati, which pushed companies into bankruptcy caused by the delay in studying files and the delay in the release of approved loans.
In addition, the Confederation calls on the banks to reduce the level of bureaucracy and to question their information system to keep pace with the new situation and be in harmony with the expectations and prospects of our economy. The Confederation considers that the State has launched a program via a banking system that does not keep pace with our prospects, which has led to the accumulation of requests at branch level and the delay in processing and responding.
– According to the Confederation, the finance law for the year 2022 does not provide any solution to the constraints suffered by VSEs-SMEs and no attention has been paid to this category of companies which has been strongly stifled since the beginning of 2020 and is always. This is clearly manifested by the position of the government, which relied only on consultations with employers and certain lucky sectors.
Following these consultations, the government offered this lucky group a gift of 13 billion dirhams in value-added contributions. While there are thousands of very small businesses, small and medium-sized businesses that have filed for bankruptcy or are suffering from late payments from their public sector customers and major contractors.
– For this, the government to force the public sector and large private contracting companies to pay the debts of very small, small and medium-sized enterprises, because this delay in payment causes the closure of thousands of VSEs-SMEs. Recall that large and medium-sized enterprises are generally financed by this late payment due to VSEs-SMEs which has reached more than 400 billion DH while these VSEs-SMEs generally finance themselves outside the banking sector either through personal and family networks. .
– The Confederation notes with regret the absence of data and statistics on VSEs and the lack of credibility of the figures published by the Observatory of VSMEs. And for good reason, the latter defines the TPE by a definition that does not really apply to this category. This is due to the absence of consultation with the entity that represents these companies, namely the Moroccan Confederation of TPE-PME and therefore, we can neither affirm nor confirm these statistics and these figures which do not concern us.
On this occasion and in the absence of consultation or laws on the definition of the VSE, the Confederation continues to define the VSE (Very Small Enterprise) as being a company which has a turnover of less than 3 million DH and which employs less than 10 people.
– The Confederation calls on the Economic Watch Committee (CVE) to meet and take its responsibilities and immediate measures to save thousands of VSEs, SMEs and autoentrepreneurs from the fault, while recalling that this category of companies has not benefited neither from the support of the previous government nor from the decisions of this committee, and especially from the two funding programs ”Oxygène et Relance” nor from any program contract.
– The Akhannouch government to open a dialogue with our Confederation to follow the dialogue and the files that we had started with the Head of the previous government, as well as with the various ministries, because the Moroccan Confederation of VSEs-SMEs still believes in continuity of the administration and its commitments and that we are not going to start the discussions and our demands from scratch with each new government or new minister.
– The Confederation calls on the government to lighten the control procedures at the various points located at the entrances to towns and on the various roads for the movement of owners of Very Small Enterprises, Small and Medium Enterprises, their vehicles and employees in order to facilitate their movements and activities.
In this sense, the Confederation is also launching an urgent appeal to the new government of Akhannouch to accelerate the digitalization of the administration and to simplify the procedures.