At the time when the Director-General of the OCP (Moroccan fertilizer group), Mustafa Al-Turab, was announcing the annual outcome of the group for 2020, which reached 50.76 billion dirhams, with an increase in the value of the financial revenues by 3.7 percent over the year 2019, The ones who preached the results of the OCP ( OCP manages the largest phosphate reserves in the world and the third-largest source of phosphate in the international market) knew well that behind those numbers are many mysteries and many hidden details.
The numbers announced by OPC cannot be definitively verified due to the fact that it is not subject to close or remote control, and it is not listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange, which makes the numbers of this Group beyond control to manage its incomes, expenses, and investments, which amount to billions of dollars.
In 2019, inside the dome of the Moroccan Parliament, the head of the Public Finance Control Committee in the House of Representatives, Idriss Skalli Adawi, asked the President of the Supreme Council of Accounts, Idriss Jettou, to lift the secrecy of "Moroccan phosphates", stressing, along with several of his colleagues, that this would enable parliament members virtually to monitor this public organization.
However, the head of the Supreme Council of Accounts, contented himself with presenting part of the mining activity of «The Office Chérifien des Phosphates» in his report on the OCP, leaving the financial activity under the cover of secrecy under the justification that some data are "sensitive".
A year earlier, the Canadian magazine “Northern Miner” wrote that the results presented by the OCP are not clear due to the fact that the Group is not listed on the stock exchange in order to be under actual control, as the President and Director-General of the OCP suffices to “discuss the technological innovation and sustainable agriculture over talking about the transactions of the world's third-largest exporter of phosphates. "
Car revenues are greater than phosphate revenues!
Last year, despite the circumstances of the Coronavirus pandemic, the value of car exports in Morocco amounted to 72.71 billion dirhams as the largest Moroccan export, even after recording a decline of 9.3 percent compared to 2019, while exports of agriculture and foodstuffs fell again at a value of 62.54 billion dirhams. While the value of phosphate exports amounted to 50.76 billion dirhams, which puts all these figures in the question of whether the figures announced from the OCP are actually "correct" or not in light of the great "secrecy" surrounding the budget and the income of the group.
Also, during the year 2020, «The Office Chérifien des Phosphates», the only controller in this sector in Morocco, and which therefore puts its hand on the largest reserves in the world estimated at 50 billion metric tons, announced, with an extra celebration, that its number of transactions exceeded 56 billion dirhams, which makes this institution the most important economic public company in the Kingdom, but all of this did not mean that the OCP was in "good health". The office had witnessed the previous year a decline in the number of transactions by two billion dirhams, and its debts reached record numbers as admitted by the President and Director General Mustafa Al-Turab, himself, but the details and causes of all this remain far from the eyes of the public opinion by means of a "sovereign decision."
'Confidentiality' under Board of Accounts decision
It is not known whether the new chairperson of the Supreme Council of Accounts, Zainab Al-Adawi, appointed by King Mohammed VI to this position a few days ago, will break the "Taboo" and disclose for the first time in one of the annual reports of its institution the details of the financial management of the OCP group. Her predecessor, Idris Jettou, had published for the first time a report on monitoring the operation of the group in March of 2019, but at that time he settled with the aspect related to the mining activity, leaving the financial activities under the cover of secrecy.
By reviewing this report, which was published by the Supreme Council of Accounts two years ago in the form of a summary, and then re-published in September of the same year as part of the annual report for the year 2018, we found out that it dealt with the establishment’s planning for its mining activity, programming, and implementation of production programs, in addition to phosphate processing and the use and maintenance of exploitation equipments and the environmental impact of the mining activity, but he avoided addressing any digital data regarding financial transactions, despite the Council's admission in the introduction of the report that the matter is related to the sector that contributes 17 percent of the Kingdom's exports and 18 percent of the hard currency reserves.
The judges of the Supreme Board of Accounts found a "way out" for their decision to keep many details of their oversight mission confidential by giving it a description of "sensitive", as it was stated in the introductory document, "It should be noted that due to the sensitivity of the aspects that the mission dealt with and the nature of the data used, which its publication could harm the group's interests, and in line with the prevailing practices at the international level and adopted by the Supreme Audit Institutions, the Council decided to only publish the summary of the report on this mission.”
Jettou's "unconvincing" justifications
The strange thing is that the OCP group and the Supreme Council of Accounts not only hid the data related to "secret" transactions from the media and the general public but also the parliament. In May of 2019, the head of the Public Finance Control Committee in the House of Representatives, Idris Skali Adawi, revealed that he does not have the full report on the oversight mission undertaken by the Jettou Council judges, calling on the latter to lift the confidentiality of this document and provide parliamentarians with full information.
But Jettou, in front of the members of the aforementioned committee, insisted on keeping many of the data out of the public, on the grounds that they are "of high sensitivity", indicating that the matter is related to the quantities of phosphate reserves inside the Moroccan mines and the production capacity of the office, in addition to the data related to the production costs.
And he explained that publishing such information would benefit the competitors of the Moroccan office, but on the other hand, he avoided touching on the council’s financial activity in light of the talk of many imbalances in that regard.
Jettou's justifications were not convincing to many observers, first and foremost, the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, whose central office stated in June 2019 that the "explanations" given by the head of the Supreme Council of Accounts were aimed at "justifying the financial imbalances that mar the OCP's management of phosphates.", calling on the president of the council to" respond to Moroccans' questions about the money that the office earns on an annual basis.
Doubtful numbers
In light of the secrecy surrounding the OCP with the details of its financial activities and the discreet report of the Supreme Council of Accounts too, the question that poses itself is: Where does the prevailing impression about the suffering of this public institution from financial imbalances come from?
The answer here comes from its General Director, Mustafa al-Turab himself, as the man who remained in his position at the head of the office for 15 years, was a guest at the Public Finance Control Committee in the House of Representatives at the end of 2019, revealing at the time that the OCP’s debts amounted to 61 billion dirhams, meaning that it is greater than the number of Its annual transactions, but despite this, he found a justification for saying that it is "normal and does not pose a risk", given that these debts are spent on investments and not on the mass of wages.
Although the office has been making continuous profits since 2007, many matters still require explanations in light of the administration's insistence on concealing many details, as upon the arrival of Al-Turab in Parliament, his presentation highlighted that the net profits currently recorded are much less than those that were recorded years ago, In 2008, for example, it approached 25 billion dirhams, and in 2011 it reached nearly 20 billion dirhams, while since 2016 it did not exceed the ceiling of 5 billion dirhams, which requires disclosing the annual financial transactions of the institution to find out the reason for this decline and its relationship to the nature of the financial status quo.
The failed partial deal for Emiratis
However, these are not the only indicators that call into question the recovery of the OCP. In September of 2015, the American news agency Bloomberg, which specializes in economics, finance, and business, published a news report that the Moroccan state would open the capital of the OCP Office for privatization.
This news was like the unveiling of what is going on behind the scenes of a "secret agreement" between Rabat and Abu Dhabi, which aims to give up part of the largest phosphate company in the world to one of the sovereign funds in the Emirates after the number of its transactions deteriorated terrifyingly due to the wrong expectations which they were based by Mustafa Al-Turab, President and Director General of the OCP.
What made Morocco think of “selling” its sovereign wealth to Abu Dhabi? .. To answer this question, we must return to the year 2012, when «The Office Chérifien des Phosphates» had achieved net profits estimated at one billion and 400 million dollars before it retreated to half of that a year later, and then deteriorated To 508 million dollars in 2014.
These tremendous losses and the decline in revenues came due to the "failed" Al-Turab plan which was based on raising production to cover huge investments, based on 2012 profits, which was expected to continue to rise. However, the global market "disappointed" the expectations of the President and Director-General of the OCP, as the prices of phosphates deteriorated in the global market, in light of the great competition between the countries producing this substance internationally, as well as the shrinking of India's import of Moroccan phosphates.
These and other factors made the Emiratis enter the line to participate in the capital of the OCP and put a foot on the largest phosphate reserves in the world, especially after the debts of the OCP became heavy and threatened its financial balance.
Thus, Rabat and Abu Dhabi worked to formulate the entry of the Emiratis into Moroccan phosphate, so that the two parties chose to create a "strategic alliance" between the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and «The Office Chérifien des Phosphates», compensating for the opening of the latter's capital and privatizing part of it, but Rabat backed away from this option after it was taken seriously back then.
A few years later, specifically in May 2018, the President and General Manager, Mustafa Al-Turab, traveled to Abu Dhabi, where he met Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, who is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), and there, the two men who run the two most important esoteric wealth companies in the world. The first in phosphates and the latter in petroleum discussed all the means for the Emiratis to enter «The Office Chérifien des Phosphates», and hours after this meeting, the creation of a "strategic alliance" between OCP and ADNOC was announced to establish a world-class joint venture for the production of fertilizers, with the aim of owning industrial assets in "Jorf Lasfar" In Morocco, and the Ruwais region in the United Arab Emirates.
This agreement was a declaration of the failure of privatizing «The Office Chérifien des Phosphates» and a "great disappointment" for the Emiratis who are looking for control over the sources of fertilizers in the world, as they controlled a part of the global energy market through the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
Phosphates finance Clinton and anger Trump
Among the controversial options for OCP, which had repercussions even on the foreign policy of Morocco, was the one that was revealed by American newspapers throughout the year 2015, as articles talked about the funding allocated by the OCP to the Clinton Foundation, which is estimated at one million dollars.
The American Politico magazine published a report that the Clinton Foundation obtained a donation of one million dollars from «The Office Chérifien des Phosphates», which shook the reputation of the former Secretary of State under President Barack Obama, and made Hillary Clinton face her first storm as she prepares to enter the presidential elections against Donald Trump, who He would later become president.
At the time, Hillary Clinton was subjected to a barrage of criticism. Even the head of foreign affairs in Congress, Chris Smith, asked Clinton to return the money and cut off any coordination with the OCP according to Al-Monitor.
This "unclear" funding made of former US President Donald Trump’s relationship with Morocco remain "lukewarm" for four years, which is the span of his presidential term, before he became the godfather under the supervision of his special advisor, Jared Kushner, for the Moroccan normalization deal with Israel in exchange for recognition of the Moroccan Sahara, and being in prolonged contact with King Mohammed VI, in which they exchanged a lot of "appreciation."
All these events have brought the OCP into the category of "black boxes", whose financial management is difficult to detect.
With all this "deadly" accumulation in the OCP's reputation internationally, the weight of its debt amounting to 61 billion dirhams which is increasing year after year, and the great slack in the management of this institution internally due to the bureaucracy and favoritism in employment, huge wages, fictional compensation, and ghost employees, «The Office Chérifien des Phosphates» complex became similar to the "Pandora Box" in Greek mythology, which when opened, all "evils, greed, frailty and impudence" may come out from a public company that is in charge of the management of public money and the Moroccan sovereign wealth.
