BUJUMBURA November 2nd (ABP) – The assistant to the Minister of the Interior, Community Development and Public Security, Célestin Bonasize Nimubona, opened a workshop on Monday, October 30, 2023. exchanges of experience on the financing of local authorities, organized by the National Communal Investment Fund (FONIC), during the visit to the Local Authorities Loan Fund (FPCL).
That activity was organized with the aim of discovering the achievements and performances of FONIC and FPCL in financing local authorities. According to him, the National Development Plan (PND) 2018-2027 indicates that the overall strategic objective of decentralization is to strengthen decentralization through social cohesion and improvement of local governance.
To that end, he recalled, the responsible and hardworking government is implementing several development projects which are already bearing fruit. He also initiated the pooling of land, with a view to developing agriculture and livestock breeding in order to increase production. According to him, the government of Burundi is committed to supporting local communities and making the commune the center of development.
To that end, he revealed that the mismatch between transferred resources and skills could be explained by certain factors, namely the incomplete implementation of decentralization in African countries, the insufficiency of resources at the central level, the ineffectiveness of the mechanisms for making transferred resources available, as well as the weak capacity of local authorities to mobilize and secure both their own revenues and those transferred.
In order to overcome those difficulties, Mr. Nimubona reported that the States of several African countries have set up Local Government Financing Institutions (IFCL) which ensure the provision of financial resources to those communities through subsidies.
In addition, he added, those institutions support local communities by supporting the strengthening of their capacities, as is the case with FONIC for Burundi and FPCL for Ivory Coast.
Aware of the complexity of the challenges to be met, Mr. Nimubona explained that those institutions also created the Network of African Local Government Financing Institutions (RIAFCO), with a view to exchanging and sharing experiences together.
The Director General of FONIC, Mr. Gervais Niyibizi recalled that FONIC today displays recognized experience and expertise, major achievements in the field of infrastructure, basic social services and a fairly rich experience in mobilizing people. self-financing resources based on the mobilization of endogenous resources and management of partnerships which could inspire the Ivorian Loan Fund for local authorities (FPCL).
Mr. Niyibizi also testified that Burundi, through FONIC, has become a good student if we consider the progress already recorded in terms of decentralization and the government’s commitments, materialized by a significant increase in the budget intended for financing communal projects, that for the interest of the citizen.
Furthermore, he cited certain achievements made by FONIC. That concerns in particular the financing by the government of Burundi via FONIC, of 2911 Sangwe village cooperatives with an amount of 58 billion BIF, respectively over the financial year 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, where each cooperative received 20 million BIF, financing and monitoring of construction or rehabilitation projects for basic social infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals, communal offices, communal youth centers, stadiums, roads and bridges.
In addition, he added, other projects financed by the government or development partners are being implemented, including the construction of modern villages, the Vumbi honey factory, the Ruyigi agro-food complex, the village irrigation of Busoni, the cassava processing unit in Giharo – Bukemba.
Despite all those achievements, he did not forget to cite the challenges including insufficient financial means, if they consider the needs expressed by the community, the qualitative and quantitative insufficiency in human resources, as well as the legal texts which are no longer relevant.
The FONIC plans to carry out the mapping of the projects carried out in all the communalities, the revision of the legal texts of the FONIC until it becomes a bank of the communalities, so that the latter can contract financing for their development projects. He also plans to continue to build good relationships with other local government financing institutions.