BUJUMBURA May 25th (ABP) – The President of the National Assembly Daniel Gélase Ndabirabe chaired Monday, May 23, 2022, at the Kigobe hemicycle, a plenary session to analyze the bill on the regulations and budget report for the fiscal year 2020-2021.
During the explanatory memorandum, the Minister of Finance, Budget and Economic Planning Mr. Domitien Ndihokubwayo indicated that the budget was executed both in revenue and in expenditure, in accordance with the prescriptions of law number 1/ 13 of May 15, 2020 fixing the general budget of the Republic of Burundi.
Regarding the forecasts, Mr. Ndihokubwayo indicated that 1,422,810,975,516 BIF were planned, but at the time of the achievements, the State collected 1,569,696,696,803 BIF, with an achievement rate of 110%. He specified that the forecasts for the execution of the various development projects and the works of the state were 1,576,184,805,156 BIF, and that at the time of the achievements, the State used 1,694,575,669,728 BIF. i.e. 108%.
In terms of exemptions, Mr. Ndihokubwayo pointed out that during the 2020-2021 financial year, the amount of exemptions achieved is 157,908,716,138 BIF, compared to the planned budget of 18,000,000,000 BIF. He did not fail to point out that in general, all the activities that were planned for the year 2020-2021 have been carried out. He pointed out that with the ongoing reforms in the area of finance, including the program budget, the activities and projects to be carried out will be carried out taking into account the funds that will be collected and the way in which they will be used.
During the question session, the deputies asked why the achievements of the exemptions exceeded what the State had planned. Minister Ndihokubwayo replied that those overruns are mainly due to the fact that it is difficult to make forecasts at the beginning of the financial year, the advantages given to investors by the API, the advantages granted to diplomatic representations, the construction and supplies for State services, drug orders, as well as the humanitarian actions of NGOs.
In that same context, the deputies recommended that exemptions should focus much more on investments to generate revenue, and also asked the minister to strengthen monitoring and evaluation to avoid losses for the country.
The elected representatives of the people also noted that for the said exercise, the arrears for the suppliers are very important, explaining that this phenomenon slows down the activities of the economic operators and the national economy suffers from it. In that case, the minister in charge of finance replied that the execution of the budget encounters circumstances, such as insufficient budget forecasts which prevent payment on time. Despite that, he promised that actions are being taken at the level of his ministry, to avoid this situation, such as the non-reservation of credits for the contracts being finalized.
Concerning the public companies which do not pay the dividends on the account of the State, the Minister replied that working meetings were held for the managers of those companies and that reminder letters were sent to those latter, to induce them to pay dividends. He hopes that with the coming years, these companies will distribute state dividends in real time.
The President of the National Assembly Mr. Daniel Gélase Ndabirabe recommended to the Minister of Finance, Budget and Economic Planning, to correct the errors that were made during the execution of the 2020-2021 budget, so that they do not return in the exercises of the years to come.
After in-depth analysis of that bill, 88 deputies (75%) out of 116 who were present adopted it subject to certain recommendations.