Financial Control and Governance Reforms: Key Levers for the Legitimation and Consolidation of Management Control within Moroccan Public Establishments and Enterprises

Abstract

Public establishments and enterprises (PEE) play a structuring role in the Moroccan economy, both through their contribution to public investment and their involvement in the implementation of public policies. However, their steering and oversight remain weakened by persistent shortcomings in terms of performance, transparency, and governance. These limitations have led public authorities to undertake reforms aimed at reshaping the governance of PEE and transforming State management and supervision frameworks toward mechanisms more strongly oriented toward performance, risk management, and strategic steering.

This article examines how recent reforms in financial control and public governance - particularly the transition toward accompanying and ex post control regimes, as well as the implementation of a centralized State ownership model led by the National Agency for the Strategic Management of State Holdings (ANGSPE) - have contributed to legitimizing, structuring, and institutionalizing management control within PEE. The analysis shows that these developments have progressively made management control a prerequisite of the new State financial control frameworks. Viewed as a mechanism for reducing information asymmetries and as a lever for enhancing managerial accountability, management control now emerges as a structuring instrument of strategic dialogue between the State shareholder, governance bodies, and the executives of public enterprises. Drawing jointly on agency theory and the institutional approach, the article highlights the role of management control as an essential organizational infrastructure for steering the overall performance of PEE and for operationalizing the centralized State ownership model.

JEL Classification: H83, H11, H32, M48, D23.

Type of Paper: Theoretical Research.