SUMMARY REPORT OF THE PLENARY SESSION OF APRIL 24, 2024

In the year two thousand and twenty-four, on the twenty-fourth day of April, the Parliament met in Congress in the Kigobe hemicycle in Bujumbura under the respective chairpersonships of Rt. Honourable Gélase Daniel NDABIRABE, Speaker of the National Assembly and Honourable Denise NDADAYE, First Deputy Speaker of the Senate to follow the presentation of the report on the implementation of the Government’s PTBA for the first half of the 2023-2024 financial year.

This session, which was enhanced by the presence of parliamentarians and the head of Government, Lieutenant General of Police Gervais NDIRAKOBUCA, Prime Minister of the Republic of Burundi, began with a prayer at 11:50 a.m.

Opening the session, the Speaker of the National Assembly first welcomed the Honourable deputies and senators present and, subsequently, after a word of greeting on behalf of the Senate office, delivered by the First Deputy Speaker of the Senate, gave the opportunity to the guest of the day to present the above-mentioned report.

In his presentation, the Prime Minister indicated that the report as a whole covers four areas of the country’s life, namely:

• the political domain;
• the economic domain;
• the social domain;
• the environmental domain.

The budget currently being executed, explains the Head of Government, was established in a context of a shift from the average budget to the programme budget. As the system was new and the various stakeholders in the execution of this system were not sufficiently equipped, difficulties were recorded in all sectors, following the groping work of everyone.

To do this, recovery measures will be undertaken and actions which will not be executed during the 2023-2024 financial year will be rescheduled for the 2024-2025 financial year, insists the Prime Minister.

After the presentation and the reading of the written questions which were asked by the two chambers of Parliament and the answers given, the floor was given to the parliamentarians to express themselves in the general debate.

To the disappointment of elected officials in relation to the low rate of execution of investment projects in all sectors of the country’s life, the Prime Minister responded that at the Government level the same observation was made. He explains that the major reasons lie in the long procedures for awarding public contracts and the lack of control over the operation of the new programme budget system.

When asked if the Government would be satisfied with the achievements of OBUHA and the ABR, Lieutenant General of Police Gervais NDIRAKOBUCA responded in the negative. A study to evaluate the performance of the two institutions was commissioned in order to subsequently be able to implement reform measures, explains the Prime Minister.

At the wish of parliamentarians that it would be better to entrust the monitoring of construction work to communal engineers for sites located in their zones of action to prevent OBUHA from controlling the work that it itself has carried out, the head of the Government responded that these communal engineers are directly involved in all the projects carried out by OBUHA in the communes.

As for knowing why the report could highlight the maximum level of execution of a project and found itself for the same project with zero disbursement, the answer was that this paradoxical situation is explained by the fact that the report can be produced and transmitted while payment procedures have not yet been completed.

To the observations of elected officials that the road rehabilitation project seems to be suspended, at a time when almost all the roads are completely destroyed, Lieutenant General of Police Gervais NDIRAKOBUCA indicated that since all the roads were built almost at the same time, the period actually of rehabilitation coincides. So, as the Government does not have enough resources, the rehabilitation is suspended from time to time while funds are collected.

Given that in this report, the project to rehabilitate and construct the offices which will house the zonal services in 2025 is not being implemented, parliamentarians wanted to know the reasons for this situation. The Prime Minister explained that the procedures for awarding contracts were a major obstacle. However, he reassures by promising to do everything to erect these buildings before the 2025 elections.

At the end of the discussion, the elected representatives of the people suggested the establishment of a regular monitoring mechanism for the execution of projects in order to remedy the situation in time. Also to deal with the blocking of project execution, due to long public procurement procedures, each ministry should draw up the procurement plan for all projects scheduled during the budget year.

The session, which took place in a climate of perfect understanding, was closed at 5:50 p.m. with a prayer.