Burundi : a country emerging in 2040 and developed in 2060, myth or realistic?

The Burundian civil society must make its contribution to help the country achieve its vision of an emerging Burundi in 2040 and developed in 2060. This is the point of view of the chairperson of the Anti-Corruption Observatory and economic embezzlement, OLUCOME. And on the side of Speech and Action for the Awakening of Conscience and the Change of Mentalities, PARCEM, this vision of the government will not be possible without good budgetary governance. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

OLUCOME is committed to getting involved in the government’s policy to make Burundi an emerging country in 2040, and a developed country in 2060.

“It is a constitutional obligation which recommends that we contribute to having a developed country. The civil society as a whole, in its diversity, must give its contribution, whether at the level of the development of strategic documents, mobilization of funds but also in the monitoring-evaluation of projects”, said Gabriel Rufyiri, OLUCOME chairperson, in an exchange workshop on Tuesday. For him, every Burundian must be interested in the development of the country, hence the civil society must be active in supporting the government.

The PARCEM chairperson finds that there are prerequisites for the government to achieve this objective. Faustin Ndikumana indicates that debts in Burundi are high and revenues are multiplied, which risks blocking certain progress in the Burundian government’s policies.

He illustrates this with examples : “from 2013 to 2023, we see tax revenues which have been almost multiplied by 3.5%. We went from 500 billion to more than 1700 billion francs. The situation of buildings and equipment in schools is terrible, as does the shortage of teachers. We deplore a massive departure of doctors, the arrears of hospital payments which have not been settled, access to justice remains problematic, the freezing of the annals of civil servants which causes a backlog of payments currently high with poor financing of retirees, the decline in agricultural production, the poor situation of road infrastructure, etc.”

Questionable expenses remain, according to him. It is based, for example, on the regular subsidy of around 90 billion francs allocated to cooperatives, even though they are production companies.

“This budget is double the budget of a ministry like that of Justice, which is 51 billion per year”, noted Faustin Ndikumana.

He recommends that the government revise the current budget after in-depth discussions involving the public but also calls for the reinstatement of the Ministry of Planning for the development of projects.

Debt

For his part, the economic expert, Diomède Ninteretse, specifies that the public debt already contracted by the Burundian government until 2022 was around 6,000 billion francs.

But he explains that a full-fledged debt for a country would not constitute a major challenge if it is well oriented much more in the production sector than in consumption.

“Public debt is not a problem in itself because the country has the right to take out credit both internally and externally. But the problem is where the debt goes. If we analyze the revenue forecast, there is a financing need of more than 720,000 billion francs. The government of Burundi, to finance the budget deficit, will necessarily resort to credit or, possibly, if there is development aid, that is where it will probably be able to fill this void or this gap”, he said.

He adds that “expenses were increased by 68% while production was increased by only 2%. It is always recommended that when you take out a loan, you should always take into account your gross domestic product. However, GDP has fallen, so we must avoid credits, especially if they are not directed towards the production sectors.”

This expert advises the Burundian authorities to direct credit in areas that can generate currencies and the well-being of the population. He suggests contracting if possible to exploit the minerals, because there it is more certain that the production will be exported and will make it possible to bring in foreign currencies and also create jobs. This could bring added value to the country’s economy, as this expert pointed out.