SUMMARY REPORT OF THE PLENARY SESSION OF 22 DECEMBER 2022 ON THE ADOPTION OF TWO BILLS

The year two thousand and twenty two, on the twenty-second day of December, the senators met in the hemicycle of the Senate for the 116^th  session of the sixth legislature to analyze two bills, namely:

1. Draft law n°1/…/…/2022 on the ratification of the Trade Agreement between the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Government of the Republic of Burundi, signed on 29 April 2022, Kinshasa;

2. The draft law n°1/…of …/…/2022 modifying the law n°1/28 of 23 August 2006 on the General Statute of Civil Servants.

The session was chaired by the First Deputy Speaker of the Senate, Honourable Denise NDADAYE. It was attended by 30 senators and two representatives of the Government, namely the Minister of Infrastructure, Equipment and Social Housing, Mr. Dieudonné DUKUNDANE and the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Employment, Mr. Déo RUSENGWAMIHIGO. It started as usual with a prayer at 10.20 a.m.

Opening the meeting, the First Deputy Speaker of the Senate first presented to the Senators the amended draft programme from 15 to 29 December 2022 for adoption.

After the adoption of this programme, the chairperson of the session gave the floor to the Minister of Infrastructure, Public Works and Social Housing to present the explanatory memorandum of the first draft bill mentioned above.

In his presentation, he made it known that considering the necessity and emergency of facilitating small cross-border trade by reaffirming the importance of cooperation for a better development of trade relations for the mutual benefit of the economic and social progress of the people, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Government of the Republic of Burundi decided to strengthen and develop trade relations on the basis of equality and mutual understanding, to intensify bilateral friendship and to extend their cooperation framework. He further specified that this Agreement was signed in Kinshasa on 29 April 2022 between these two Governments already mentioned.

Thereafter, the floor was given to the chairman of the referred committee to present its report.

After the presentation of the report, the senators spoke for further clarification.

To the question to know if it is possible to easily withdraw from this agreement in case some irregularities are observed during its application, the Minister replied that for all agreements, there are always withdrawal clauses.

Concerning the security of goods and people passing through the Lake Tanganyika, the Minister indicated that the Government will provide security organs with modern materials, especially the shipping policemen, to deal with insecurity.

As for the senators’ concern about the quality of Burundian products to be exported, the Minister indicated that the Government will do its best to provide the Burundian Bureau of Standardization (BBN) with the necessary equipment to better ensure quality control.

To the senators’ contribution who indicated that for commercial products, Burundi could attract the Democratic Republic of Congo by selling quality services notably in Banks, Hospitals, Universities, at the airport and other services deemed useful, the Minister thanked the senators and affirmed that it is a good contribution to the Burundian Government 

After all these clarifications, the bill was adopted unanimously by the 39 senators, 30 of whom were present and 9 by proxy.

Thereafter, the President of the session invited the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Employment to present the preamble of the second bill on the agenda.

In his presentation, the representative of the Government indicated that since 2006, civil servants have been governed by law n°1/28 of 23 August 2006 on the General Statute for Civil Servants. According to him, although the Government of the Republic of Burundi has adopted a National Programme for the Reform of the Administration (PNRA) with the objective of administrative reform allowing the substantial improvement of the level of services rendered to citizens and the performance of the public administration, the optimisation of human resources management as well as the restoration of the principles of management of public agents around the values of equity, transparency and performance, shortcomings giving rise to lamentations and claims have not ceased to be observed in the public sector.

For the Minister, the present bill aimed at reorganizing the General Status of Civil Servants will integrate the reforms provided for by the National Programme for the Reform of the Administration since its approval in 2012 to be able to resolve certain irregularities observed in the Civil Service, in particular the formulation of a performance management policy in the public sector which serves as a basis for the recognition of merit and the sanctioning of inefficiency by replacing the current grading system, the classification of jobs, which is a powerful tool for the return to pay equity, and the subsequent development of a new pay policy, which builds in part on the two previous initiatives, to allow at the same time a return to pay equity and a partial differentiation of pay according to results.

The President of the session then gave the floor to the President of the referred Committee to present the report of the latter.

During the general debate, the senators wanted to know why on the eve of the adoption of this Statute by the National Assembly, the unions of the public health staff made demands, the Minister indicated that during the preparation of this bill, all the unions concerned were invited including those of the Public Health staff and were all in agreement. We were surprised and amazed by their demands after our talks; we will continue to listen to them,” he concluded.

Regarding employers who wrongfully dismiss workers, the Minister said that there is a commission in charge of dealing with such cases within the Ministry, adding that many do so because they do not know what the law says, he said.

On the subject of the probationary period, which some people consider unnecessary because there are terms of reference during the recruitment of civil servants, the Minister indicated that this period is important to see if the worker is really up to the job.

After the adoption of the substantive and formal amendments, the bill was adopted unanimously by the 39 senators, 30 of whom were present and 9 by proxy

The session was closed at 14:45 in an atmosphere of mutual understanding.