Photo of theweek : President Neva wants to transform all civil servants into street cleaners

Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye announced Saturday that he intends to transform all civil servants into street cleaners with the exception of doctors and judges starting next week. He said he will supervise the activity himself. “They will return to the office when the streets and the surroundings of their offices are clean,” he said. A few months ago, his wife launched the “zero waste” program, which remained a dead letter. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Accompanied by his guards and officials including the mayor of Bujumbura, Jimmy Hatungimana, the Burundian president visited several public administration offices on Saturday. He cleaned their premises and some streets of Bujumbura, the commercial city where the central administration and United Nations agencies are concentrated.

Among the places visited is the ministry in charge of health. It is in front of the offices of this ministry that he made his statement.

“Burundians like holidays. They really like holidays. It is no longer useful for them to remain seated in their offices. I am removing them all from their offices. Starting next week, I will crisscross the entire city. Whoever I find in the office, I will be the one to remove him from his office,” declared President Ndayishimiye.

And he clarified, “Only doctors and judges are authorized to remain at their assigned post for the good of the population. But any other civil servant I find sitting in the office, he will see what I am made of”.

For Évariste Ndayishimiye, all other activities will resume when the streets are “clean”.

He believes that civil servants risk catching uncleanness related diseases including cholera, due to the filth observed at their workplace.

Words?

Last March, First Lady Angeline Ndayishimiye launched a program called “zero waste” in the same commercial capital. Mr. Ndayishimiye made the same threats to civil servants, traders and residents a few months ago. But no evaluation of this plan so far.

Since the accession of the former Hutu rebellion to power in 2005, Burundian authorities from the CNDD-FDD had established “mandatory community works” to “clean public places”. This work was organized during weekends especially, but the late President Pierre Nkurunziza, who preferred to travel around the provinces instead of staying in his office in Bujumbura, carried out this work almost every day, just like he played football. Activists and opponents have always denounced “forced labor” that keeps Burundians in poverty because all activities must be suspended and residents forced to participate in them.

With Ndayishimiye’s accession to power in June 2020 following the unexpected death of Pierre Nkurunziza, these tasks have decreased in intensity.

Photo : Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye photographed with a broom in hand in front of the Ministry of Health in Bujumbura, August 10, 2024, DR