We knew that growth would not be there in Morocco in 2024 and the economic gloom would persist; the High Commission for Planning, the Moroccan Economic Center and the World Bank have clearly said it. At best, there will be a surge in 2025, according to the predictions of the Moroccan Central Bank. But no one expected the cataclysm announced by the Moroccan Confederation of TPE (very small enterprises)-SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). Some 40,000 companies are heading straight for bankruptcy by the end of this year…
The last time we talked about the crash of small businesses was in January 2023, with 12,397 bankruptcies. But in 2024 we are at higher levels, well beyond the bad news of 2019. We are talking about tens of thousands of bankruptcies very soon, says the Moroccan Confederation of TPE-PME, quoted by “Assabah” this Wednesday, September 11. The same source indicates that 40,000 companies could quickly sink compared to 33,000 in 2023 and 10,000 in 2019.
The organization warns of this national disaster with incalculable consequences (impoverishment of entire sections of society, mass unemployment, etc.). The confederation spoke of ” the collapse of an entire economic model that, until recently, offered many opportunities, and jobs and encouraged private initiative.”
After the failure, the Confederation identified responsibilities: “large companies linked to these small structures by contracts encourage the fragility of the latter” and “several reasons combine to lead to this announced catastrophe, including the lack of financing, the drop in public orders, the delay or refusal to execute payments”. The source presents “the case of a company belonging to a well-known businessman”…
The employers’ organization added that the company has been sitting on payments owed to around ten small businesses, “which is causing them significant harm”. The Confederation is asking its main shareholder “to assume its financial responsibilities towards its creditors”.
Furthermore, the Confederation of TPE-PME is calling on the competent authorities to conduct an investigation into this dark affair and that ultimately “sanctions are provided, to prevent such cases from happening again in the future”. Abdellah El Fergui, president of the professional structure, told the media that “the companies that are debtors of this large company all belong to the category of small and very small companies”…
Mr. El Fergui said he had contacted the head of the company in question “to try to find a favorable outcome” to this very damaging blockage, but that all his efforts “the last of which dates back to the beginning of September, have remained unanswered.” He added that the Confederation plans in the coming days ” to organize a press conference on this subject.” So watch this space.
