In an unusual move within public institutions, the Office of Vocational Training and Job Promotion, headed by Loubna Taricha, issued a strongly worded statement in response to statements made by the Minister of Economic Inclusion, Small Business, Employment and Skills, Younes Sekkouri, regarding responsibility for delays in disbursing grants to vocational training trainees.
The statement, titled "The Office of Vocational Training and Job Promotion Refuses to be Held Responsible for Imbalances Not of Its Making," stated that the Minister's statements "contradict factual and documented data," emphasizing that the cause of the delay lies with the supervising ministry, not the Office. The statement explained that the Office, since 2017, has managed grants for trainees within the framework of a clear joint agreement with the Ministry, to ensure that young people benefit from their grants on time. This system continued until 2025, before recurring problems emerged in the transfer of financial allocations from the Ministry, in addition to difficulties in controlling beneficiary lists, a process in which the Office does not intervene in the approval. The statement pointed out that the ministerial funding witnessed a "significant financial gap" between 2018 and 2022, as no financial transfers were recorded during that period, forcing the Office to use its own resources to ensure the continued disbursement of grants, where the total amount paid by the Office during the period 2017-2025 amounted to about 968 million dirhams, of which it contributed 296 million dirhams from its own treasury, representing 30 percent of the total amounts paid. The Office affirmed that despite repeated official correspondence to the Ministry, the amounts it covered from its own resources have not yet been recovered, highlighting that the aim of this step was to preserve the interests of the trainees and the continuity of grants without interruption. This unprecedented confrontation between the institution and the supervisory directorate is expected to spark a wide-ranging political and administrative debate about the limits of responsibilities and the nature of financial coordination between the two parties, in a file that concerns thousands of trainees in Morocco.
