The receipts of the region of Casablanca-Settat (289 million dirhams MDH) represent 21.9% of the overall receipts of the local authorities, tells us the monthly bulletin of local finance statistics of the General Treasury of the Kingdom.
The Casablanca-Settat region continues to be one of the most important contributors among its peers in local public finances, indicates the monthly bulletin for January 2021 that the TGR has just released.
The distribution of revenue from the main budgets of local authorities by region shows a strong concentration at the level of six regions with 77.2% of these revenue, namely Casablanca Settat (21.9%), Fès-Meknes (13.9% ), Marrakech-Safi (13.9%), Rabat-Salé-Kenitra (10.4%), Tanger-Tétouan-Al Hoceïma (8.6%) and the Oriental (8.6%).
After Casablanca-Settat, the region of Fez-Meknes comes second with 13.9% of revenue (184 MDH), followed by the Marrakech-Safi region with 183 MDH while revenue from the region of Dakhla-Oued Ed Dahab represent only 0.5%.
On the expenditure side, the Casablanca-Settat region remains first with MAD 197 million, or 22.7% of the overall expenditure of local authorities.
The distribution of local authority expenditure by region also shows a strong concentration at the level of six regions with 75.5% of this expenditure. While Casablanca-Settat is in the lead, the region of Dakhla-Oued Ed Dahab remains last with expenses that represent only 1% of overall expenses.
Significant improvement in community finances
Overall, this TGR bulletin shows a clear improvement in the finances of communities. Indeed, at the end of January 2021, the overall surpluses generated by the budgets of local authorities for the year 2021 (452 million dirhams) and previous years were 42 billion dirhams. These surpluses are intended to cover the commitments referred to under operating and equipment expenditure.
In detail, the execution of the budgets of local authorities, on the basis of revenue collected and expenditure issued, shows an increase in ordinary revenue of 33.9%.
This increase is attributed to the increase in direct taxes, non-tax revenues and tax revenues transferred by the State.
Regarding the increase in direct taxes, it was of the order of 67.7% following the increase in the tax on undeveloped urban land (+60 MDH), professional tax (+ 46 MDH), the municipal services tax (+33 MDH) and the housing tax (+8 MDH).
The 19% increase in indirect taxes which can be explained in particular by the increase in the share of local authorities in the proceeds of the value added tax (VAT) (+77 MDH), the tax on construction operations (+21 MDH), specifies the same source.
The impact of the pandemic
Regarding non-tax revenues, they increased by 63.7%, resulting in particular from the increase in the fee for temporary occupation of the communal public domain (+18 MDH), fees on the revenues of agents of the wholesale markets. (+15 MDH) and state revenues (+8 MDH).
The tax revenues transferred by the State (share of local authorities in the product of VAT and share of the regions in the product of IS, IR and tax on insurance contracts) represent 52.3 % of the overall revenue of local authorities, our newsletter.
In terms of expenditure, ordinary expenditure decreased by 8.4% due to the decrease of 7.8% in personnel costs and 9.7% in expenditure on other goods and services, combined with the increase in 7.7% of debt interest charges. At the end of January 2021, no investment operation had been recorded, against investment expenditure of 13 million dirhams at the end of January 2020. Pandemic obliges.
The change in the structure of local government spending between the end of January 2020 and the end of January 2021 shows the increase in the share of staff costs and interest charges on the debt, combined with the decrease
from material expenditure and capital expenditure.
Thus, the obligation of “structural balance of public accounts” – in accordance with the provisions of organic laws relating to regions, prefectures and provinces and municipalities, the budget of a local authority can only be balanced or in surplus -, at the end of January 2021, the execution of the budgets of the local authorities shows: a positive ordinary balance of 452 million dirhams against a positive ordinary balance of 38 million dirhams a year earlier.
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