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Rabat – Morocco’s central bank, Bank al-Maghrib, has for the first time met the standard to earn ISO 37001 certification from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for its Anti-Corruption Management System (SMAC) after an audit by EuroCompliance, Moroccan news outlet 2M reports.
The bank received the certification on Thursday, November 28, at an award ceremony celebrating 60 years since Bank al-Maghrib’s foundation.
Bank al-Maghrib began the process to earn the international standard certificate in May 2017, according to L’Economiste. But Morocco’s BMCE Bank obtained the certification first, becoming one of the first entities to earn the certification in Africa.
Having the ISO 37001 certification gives a guarantee to customers, insurance companies, and rating agencies of the “maturity and rigours of the anti-corruption programme in place” at the bank, EuroCompliance explains. To receive certification, a certified auditing group checks to see that the bank or company has sufficient measures to combat corruption.
At the Bank al-Maghrib ceremony, the bank’s governor, Abdellatif Jouahri, spoke of the institution’s strong commitment against corruption. He said that the bank has “an anti-corruption policy advocating zero tolerance for all forms of corruption.”
Minister of Labor Mohamed Amkraz noted Morocco’s efforts against corruption, especially in establishing the National Anti-Corruption Commission and the opening of a hotline (08 00 00 47 47) to call out corruption.
The ISO 37001 is a single international standard to “normalize the wide variety of competing and overlapping guidance from international regulators and agencies.” Entities receive a new audit every three years to update their certification.
In 2016, representatives from Morocco helped craft the current ISO 37001 standard along with participants from other countries.
Experts and businesspeople’s perceptions of public sector corruption in Morocco improved by three points out of 100 in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International. Morocco’s 2018 score of 43 corresponds exactly with the global average, and Morocco ranked as the 73rd least perceptibly corrupt country out of 180 countries.
