BUJUMBURA December 21st (ABP) – Under the chairmanship of the Head of State, Mr. Evariste Ndayishimiye, the National Commission for Social Protection (CNPS), held, on Monday, December 20 in Bujumbura, its 7th annual general assembly, a check on the site by ABP has revealed.
In his opening speech, the Head of State indicated that the present assembly was part of the perspective of studying the socio-economic conditions of the people of Burundi, adding that the government of Burundi is pursuing its objectives which it has given itself since 2005 to allow all Burundians to have good health such as free childbirth for pregnant women, free schooling for children under 5, and so on, Mr. Ndayishimiye said.
On the same occasion, the President of the Republic urged all village, zone, communal and provincial administrative leaders to closely follow the implementation of the CNPS projects and to revitalize the “Merankabandi” project.
“We don’t need Burundians who call themselves miserable as long as they are healthy, intelligent and have strength,” President Ndayishimiye insisted.
He did not forget to thank the World Bank for its crucial start-up support for poor citizens.
The Minister responsible for social solidarity, Mrs. Imelde Sabushimike, in turn, indicated that her ministry is at the service to allow all Burundian citizens to achieve sustainable development.
The resident representative of the World Bank and leader of technical and financial partners in the social protection sector, Mr. Peter Ngwa Taniform, thanked the Burundi government for the commitment it has given to extend that commission to all Burundian territory through new funding from the World Bank amounting to 150 million US dollars, which will increase social protection coverage to 1 million people, he said.
It should be recalled that this 7th General Assembly of the CNPS was held in order to assess progress in relation to the implementation of the recommendations which were made at the last Annual General Assembly (6th edition).
Those recommendations include, among other things, setting up a strategy for operationalizing the results of the actuarial study (INSS), finalizing the current actuarial study (ONPR) and operationalizing the results of the study