Recently, the press is full of information on the government’s desire to encourage Moroccan skills working abroad to return home in order to develop the activities they are currently carrying out elsewhere. I was, as far as I know, the first Moroccan to be accepted as postdoc researcher in the world leader pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel and then I preferred to return to my country. Considering the last thirty years in Morocco, there would be enough to fill a few volumes to report on this experience of “reintegration”. Instead of talking about my background, I thought more useful to discuss in this article of the kind of barriers that contribute, in my opinion, to deter Moroccan skills to return home. to facilitate the reader’s understanding of these issues, I have chosen to illustrate those difficulties through two Moroccan attempts to put in place, in the years ninety, a laboratory of analysis of the doping substances and why both of the tentative have aborted. I witnessed the first attempt and have been directly involved in the second (my files). To recap, the athletes who dope do it with the drugs they take and / or the food they eat. I have to specify that there is no way to write the present article without discussing the role of CNOM (Moroccan National Olympic Committee), headed by Army Corps General Hosni Benslimane, in managing the issue of doping. Now, any other activity of the general is not a concern of this article.
The Paradoxical behavior of CNOM
There are twenty years; the President of CNOM sent one of his emissaries at the headquarters of IOC (International Olympic Committee) in Lausanne for permission to set up a laboratory of doping analysis, much like of asking for permission to open a neighborhood bakery. The approach was kind of cavalier attitude with regard to the international practice for this type of accreditation. Before getting there, the contender for that license first of all finds an already approved senior laboratory that accepts to help him build and correctly equip the type of laboratory and assist in the training of staff over a few years for very specific analysis of doping, after which it helps to prepare your application package in the rules of art that he submits with you to the IOC. In the meeting of the Moroccan envoy with Staff of the Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analyses (LAD) where the CIO asked him to go, my name was mentioned. At the same time I was learning the news of my friends in Lausanne, the city where I stayed over eleven years to my studies and my work as an assistant, I received a phone call from general Hosni Benslimane, through his chief of staff Colonel Mokhtar Moussamim, who wanted to see me on a date and a time chosen by himself. When the time came, I went to the appointment from Marrakech to Rabat, but he was not at his office. I was told he has a meeting at Moulay Rachid sports complex where I headed immediately. At the end of his speech, I asked him about where was the project to build a Moroccan doping analysis laboratory. He then turned to a French citizen seated to his right and said, “But we have resolved this issue, right? », and the counselor, I presume, replied:” Yes, general “. At that moment, I thought that “the game is over“. In this respect, the French certainly improve their services with time, but at European level they are considered, as regards the control of the doping, a merely an average student. Now the information circulating at the time suggested that the President wanted CNOM perform the analysis of doping within the analytical laboratory of the Moroccan Royal Gendarmerie. Two of my former graduate students at the ISBB (Institute of Biology and Biochemistry) Casablanca were technicians in that lab and I was informed first hand of the excellent work that was done there. But these candidates were not trained for analysis in the field of doping that requires knowledge of scientific disciplines to a higher degree and mastery of highly sophisticated technical equipment. When asked about this, my Swiss friends thought the chances were low for the president of the CNOM to receive such approval of the IOC for the control of doping because it would have been contrary to the IOC charter guidelines for the granting of that agreement. But, I suppose, the French consultant had omitted to correctly inform the President. if not, how to interpret the passage of Mr. Hosni Benslimane shortly after on the public television on the evening news (prime time), attended by the Minister of Health (Peace be upon him) and the Minister of Youth and Sports of the time with the newspaper commentator announcing the analytical laboratory of the Moroccan Royal Gendarmerie was able to proceed from now on with the analysis of doping while the camera was showing a very conventional equipment in that laboratory. The implementation of this type of juggling should not have cost much effort for a man as powerful as General Hosni Benslimane except that for Morocco, this is exactly the kind of tomfoolery that undermines the credibility of national institutions and makes us clowns before international bodies.
A private laboratory for Doping Analyses in Morocco
On these facts, my Swiss friends inform me that they will install new equipment at the LAD and that I could have the old one (still in excellent condition) if I committed myself to use the material for needs of doping analysis. There were for millions of Swiss francs in specialized equipment and the commitment to deliver it free of charge was signed by Prof. Laurent Rivier, a pioneer in doping analysis and director of the LAD at that time (Dr Martial Saugy is the current director). The LAD also committed itself to gracefully train technical staff for doping analysis.
Consultation of two banks
After the written proposal of Prof. Laurent Rivier, I consulted the “Banque Populaire” and the bank “Crédit du Maroc” where the director of commitments, Mr. Ahmed Ouazzani for the first one and Deputy General Director, Mr. Ahmed Fargho for the second were among my friends. Both were adamant, that in case I could justify building land for the project, guaranteed to have free Swiss equipment and show that we can do the doping analysis afterwards, knowing that they are an essential requirement for Morocco (activity currently outsourced) for the credibility of international competitions, the two banks would follow for the granting of a subsidized loan for carrying out the project without hesitation. I already had the document for the material. The Wali of Tetouan at the time, Dr. Mohammed Belmahi, who has opened my ISBB Tetouan and later became a friend, at my request, called his colleague the governor of the urban agency of Casablanca, Mr. Abdelfettah Mujahid who received me and satisfied my request in the forms for the acquisition of a plot of land to build at a symbolic price in the new town of Nouaceur (my files). A document was still missing, a sort of blessing of CNOM, to have hope for achieving of the project. It was the way of the cross to expect. To be brief, I sent many letters to the Director General of CNOM and his president general Hosni Benslimane (my archives); I went to see the Director General at the headquarters of CNOM in Rabat and talked with him for more than an hour and made other unorthodox steps to have a written response, even a negative one, at least justify the proper closure that folder with my Swiss friends who had provided a huge effort to push their hierarchy to agree to principle of sending expensive hardware for free and subsequently ensure staff training and support the presentation of the application file to the IOC. But nothing worked and it was not possible to rule out that, for the University where I studied and proved myself I became a mere braggart! The worst that can happen to all these Moroccans the government want to see returning to their country to exercise now is to have in front of them people “responsible” for this type which restrain, in my opinion rather they encourage the development of the Kingdom. But they are legion in the Moroccan administration where they continue to crack down with impunity.
What about the scourge of doping in Morocco
After an intermediate episode, where I worked from Switzerland as director of an American Audit Office, I returned to continue my work in Casablanca. At that time, at beginning of the years two thousand, I saw regularly, among others, a journalist friend. When the doping case of Mr. Brahim Boulami appeared in newspapers, name of Dr Martial Saugy was also in discussion because the runner was blaming Dr Saugy for his own turpitudes. As the journalist friend asked my opinion on the subject, I gave him the phone Dr. Saugy, a buddy of study and family friend that I had visited at the LAD and at home there was not a long time, for asking him himself. After having contacted Mr. Saugy, the current director of the weekly “LAVIE-éco“, Mr. Saâd Benmansour reported on the subject in the newspaper edition of February 21, 2003. But the recurrent complaints of the sprinter were making of him a subject of all conversations and several people asked me if I could do something to help. Saâd Benmansour gave me his mobile number. On the phone we agreed to see us one evening at the Ibis hotel near the station Agdal Rabat where he was staying. We chatted and I told him that we can blame many things to Dr. Saugy except not be objective in the analytical work. But that said, if he gave me his word of honor that he had not cheated, I was ready to accompany him to LAD in Lausanne to see Dr. Martial Saugy and ask him to review before us all the analysis elements that accuse his performance and I will defend its cause with all my means. To my surprise, Mr. Boulami has kicked for touch by responding in fact he had not even been authorized by the CNOM to see me. For me, that was all.
The moral of the story
When I wanted to create the ISBB Casablanca, I had presented to the Ministry of National Education the first draft of the project in accordance with the professional school of Lausanne whose director promised me, in written form, assistance and equipment free of charge. But, the project was refused because we do not have a cultural agreement with that country. They were asking me for a French partner, that’s all. That this costs me more money without any comparative advantage was the last concern of officials who remain obtuse and full of their own power. In another case, during the creation of the company PhF Maroc, a “joint venture” between PhF Specialists, an American company and Cabinet Dr Essadki d’expertises, a Moroccan society, our Senior Counsel Master Chems Eddoha Lyoubi, took charge of the file to have the necessary permissions for the performance of the audit and certification of the Moroccan food processing units. The approach has stumbled, many months, on an alleged lack of satisfaction in practices that date back to the Protectorate. In particular, it was required of the US Company to evaluate US diplomas of vice president of the company by reference to French academia. I asked therefore for an interview with the president of the Casablanca commercial court to see which law was requiring that the American businessman has to refer to the French legislation for investing in Morocco. The magistrate was sensitive to these arguments, but for fear of violating a regulation, that he did not know where to find it anyway, he allowed, but only by way of derogation, the birth of the Moroccan-American joint entity. The procedure took more than a year (my files). But if it was for a French-Moroccan entity, examples exist; its creation would surely have had the wind in its sails. This type of coercion is still common today. So before inviting Moroccan skills abroad to come to practice in their country, it would be more relevant to cleanse once and for all this public administration that seems completely disoriented as soon as you leave the defined path by the practices left by the protectorate to strictly serve the interests of the metropolitan France.
