SUMMARY REPORT OF THE PLENARY SESSION OF JANUARY 13, 2022 RELATING TO THE ANALYSIS AND ADOPTION OF THE BILL ON THE STATUTE OF BURUNDI NATIONAL POLICE AGENTS

The year two thousand and twenty-two, on the thirteenth day of January, senators met in the Senate hemicycle for the 70^th plenary session of the sixth legislature in order to analyze the bill on the statute of Burundi National Police agents. The session was chaired by the Right Honourable Speaker of the Senate, Mr. Emmanuel SINZOHAGERA.

That session was attended by 37 senators and Minister of the Interior, Community Development and Public Securitym Mr. Gervais NDIRAKOBUCA, who had represented Government in that activity. The session was introduced as usual with a prayer at 9:33 a.m.

Opening the session, the Right Honourable Speaker of the Senate first welcomed the senators and the representative of the Government. Afterwards, the Chairman of the session invited the representative of the government to present the preamble of the aforementioned bill. In his presentation, Minister Gervais NDIRAKOBUCA indicated that the bill fills the gaps observed in the law on the statute of Burundi National Police officers currently in force. Some innovations in that bill are those relating to the occupational hazard, those related to the assistance to the entitled beneficiaries of the agent who dies on the job, once promulgated; that law will allow them to continue to enjoy the services of the Civil Service Mutual Insurance Company as well as possible appeals related to grading disputes, he added.

After that presentation, the Right  Honourable Speaker of the Senate invited Honourable Gad NIYUKURI, president of the Standing Committee in charge of political, diplomatic, defense and security issues, the Committee responsible, to move on to the presentation of the report of this committee.

Subsequently, the floor was given to the Honourable senators to express their point of view and ask questions for clarification.

To the concern of senators who wanted to know why an agent of the National Police can benefit from a six-month leave of expertise renewable only once at least according to article 19 paragraph 1 while a civil servant benefits from a three-month leave during his career; the Minister indicated that this leave covers periods of waiting for assignment, not attributable to the official because of the expiry of a period of secondment.

He further clarified that police officers may at any time be called upon for any expert mission or to work on secondment.

To the suggestion of the Honourable senators to sensitize retired police agents to get elected and, to seek how to privilege their participation in deferent councils of the grassroots administration to bring their experiences and training according to the requirements of the moment, the Minister specified that any choice of the people representative must imperatively start from the democracy principles and not from its origins, he said.

Regarding whether the renewable two-year extension provided for in that bill will be useful for police agents since there may be age cheating during the recruitment period, the Minister clarified by emphasizing that such cases are observed  among some grassroots administrators who facilitate those cheatings. Thus, he added that there are even those who cheat their ethnicity. He did not fail to specify that the arrival of a biometric identity card is imminent to bet on that problem.

After those questions of clarification, the Bill on the statute of Burundi National Police agents was put to vote and was adopted unanimously by 39 senators, among whom 37 present and 2 proxies.

After the adoption of the bill under analysis, the Speaker of the Senate thanked the government representative and closed the session with a prayer at 11:23 a.m.