BUJUMBURA February 24th (ABP) – The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, Community Development and Public Security, Mr. Martin Ninteretse, opened on Tuesday, February 22, 2022, the work for the exchange of experience between the National Agency for Financing Local Authorities (ANFlCT) of Niger and the National Communal Investment Fund (FONIC) of Burundi within the framework of the network of African institutions for the financing of local authorities (RIAFCO).
In his speech, Mr. Ninteretse thanked the ANFICT of Niger for having thought of Burundi in general and FONIC in particular.
He did not forget to cite certain factors which could be explained by a mismatch between the resources transferred and the related powers in almost all of our African countries, in particular the incomplete implementation of decentralization in those countries, several decades after the start of the process. He also mentioned the insufficiency of resources at the central level characteristic of developing economies, the ineffectiveness of the mechanisms for making transferred resources available, and the weak capacity of local authorities to mobilize and secure both their own revenues and those transferred.
In order to contribute to alleviating those difficulties, he indicated that the States of several countries have set up institutions for the financing of local authorities (IFCL) which ensure the provision of financial resources to those communities through subsidies and which, in some cases, also play an intervention role for public grants.
He added that those IFCLs also help local communities by supporting their capacity building, as is the case for Burundi with FONIC and Niger with ANFICT.
Taking the floor, the Director General of FONIC, Mr. Servilieu Nitunga, specified that they received a Nigerien delegation accompanied by their counterparts from Cameroon and the representatives of the permanent secretary of the network of African institutions for the financing of local authorities.
He said that since 2007, the Burundi government has increased its budget to finance local communities, from 8 billion to 87 billion.
At the level of the projects of the activities which are done in the village cooperatives, Mr. Nitunga underlined that Burundi was committed to financing the local communities through the cooperatives to increase the agricultural production and the livestock.
In his presentation, he recalled that FONIC was created in 2007, with the mission of mobilizing, channeling and managing internal and external financing intended for the development of local communities, supporting the implementation of communal and inter-communal projects and to build the capacity of collectives in areas related to its mission.
Regarding some of the achievements of FONIC, Mr. Nitunga cited in particular the visit and capacity building of village cooperatives throughout the country, the organization of a financial evaluation of village cooperatives and advisory support for communal projects.