During a meeting held this Tuesday, August 17 with provincial governors and senior police officers, the Minister for the Interior suggested a reduction in provinces and municipalities.

An idea already proposed by some 2020 presidential candidates. Questioned by Iwacu, they ask the State to implement real decentralization.

"I don't think that development is possible with the number of provinces and municipalities the country currently has," said Minister Gervais Ndirakobuca.

For the minister, it is important that the governor and the municipal administrator have enough space to govern in order, he says, to encourage greater collection of taxes and duties. “Some towns don’t even have a market! “, he laments.

As a reminder, Burundi currently has 18 provinces, 119 communes and 2,911 hills.

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Simon Bizimungu: “The commune is the basis of development.”

For the secretary general of the Cnl, the objective of this party was to save money on the budget allocated to the provinces and municipalities. “We have a country with 18 provinces and a multitude of municipalities whose management and operation require enormous resources. Means that the said provinces and municipalities often do not have.

According to him, the municipality should be able to benefit from enough means to be the pivot of development. "Efforts must be made to allow the economic take-off of the municipalities which are the basis of development".

The secretary general of Agathon Rwasa's party affirms that the State must put decentralization into practice to allow the autonomy of the communes. "The three communes of the Bujumbura town hall are still economically dependent on the Bujumbura town hall because decentralization has not been well planned".

Thus, the senior executive of the CNL proposes that there be the establishment of a group of experts who can put forward solutions that will promote the implementation of decentralization and therefore guarantee autonomy. of the municipalities.

Francis Rohero: “The main thing is not to have a large space to govern, it is rather what you do with it.”

With the former independent presidential candidate, five provinces in the north, south, east, west and center would structure the country. According to him, the big cities should change status. “I wanted the big cities, the cities we see today such as Bujumbura, Gitega, Ngozi, Muyinga, … to just become town halls and no longer have the prescience to call themselves provinces or large regions. “As for the municipalities, these were going to go from 119 to 100.

For Francis Rohero, it was also a question, in his program, of putting an end to the administrative burden "to facilitate investment in agricultural, pastoral, industrial and artisanal activities".

According to Mr. Rohero, the idea of ​​multiplying municipalities and provinces to get closer to the population is not tenable.

“The municipal administrator is not there to constantly receive people’s complaints in his office. Because the population is supposed to have access to basic needs, the result of a duly implemented political program”.

The agricultural engineer does not subscribe to the idea of ​​grouping municipalities together in order to increase the tax base. “The important thing is investment, a municipality cannot develop solely through taxes and levies”.

As for the desire of the Minister of the Interior to widen the geographical space for governors and municipal administrators, the initiator of the Orange movement is quite nuanced. “The main thing is not to have a large space to govern, it is rather what we do with it”.

Lighting

Siméon Barumwete: "The lack of resources of municipalities, an obstacle to decentralization"

The public policy specialist and teacher at the University of Burundi thinks that the conditions are not met to operate a new administrative division.

Is the proposal of the Minister in charge of the Interior in favor of the reduction of provinces and municipalities appropriate?

A few years ago, the World Bank financed a study that was carried out on decentralization in Burundi. And among the conclusions of this study, there was the possibility of reducing the number of municipalities because the observation was that most municipalities in Burundi were not economically and financially viable municipalities. By reducing them, it was hoped that this time, the municipalities would have enough means to drive development and local development.

But given the situation, there are municipalities that do not succeed or that pay their employees with difficulty or that pay their social contributions with difficulty to the Mutuelle de la fonction publique. Not to mention running costs, fuel for vehicles, etc.

Precisely, are the conditions in place to effectively carry out such a reform?

If we combine two or three municipalities, the overall resources will not increase. But also, there is a negative impact that one could already consider. It is that if we combine two to three municipalities, the capital of the municipality will be difficult to access for the populations. With a long distance to travel, the cost of administrative documents will be high because if, for example, the national identity card costs 500 BIF, to obtain one, it is necessary to plan at least 5000 BIF in certain cases following the costs transport which are increased tenfold.

What impact for the work of local leaders?

The hill chiefs could have difficulty getting to the capital of the commune with a communal budget which there is reason to believe would not include additional travel costs.

In addition, sufficient staff should be recruited so that public and administrative services are as close as possible to the population. So, is it rather a study to assess the cost and financial impact of this grouping in relation to the functioning of the municipality.

Without this, there is a risk of having perverse effects and of thinking that there would be a way to bail out the coffers of the municipality when reality proves the contrary.

For fairly populated provinces like Gitega and Ngozi, the figure of 200,000 to 300,000 inhabitants per municipality can easily be reached. To manage this vast demography in a large space, it is necessary to have adequate and good quality infrastructures, communication routes in good condition, efficient schools and hospitals, to set up and guarantee access to the Internet, promote financial inclusion…

The Minister for the Interior mentions the increase in municipal revenue in the event of a reduction in municipalities. Your comment ?

To increase municipal revenues, it would rather be a reform of municipal taxation. For example, analyze the possibility of new resources and new taxable materials.

With a Burundian state that is so little decentralized, is this reform possible?

Planned as part of the Arusha Peace Agreement, the decentralization reform is part of a logic of better driving local development and improving social cohesion. In addition, there was also a question of a disconnection of the central administration from the municipalities. Decentralization was also seen as a means of consolidating democracy by allowing the population to elect their local leaders according to the ideas and actions carried out in favor of the locality.

However, the great challenge linked to decentralization is the lack of means of the municipalities. Most of our municipalities are poor and live on taxes collected from markets, shops, drinking establishments, etc. The tax base is very small. With such destitution, many municipalities, despite the texts that guarantee their autonomy, still depend on the central administration. Whether the municipalities are grouped together or not, the lack of means will remain and there will be a constant need for support from the State and decentralized cooperation (twinning) to carry out community development.

So what?

Increase the share of certain production structures in the coffers of the municipality. For example, tea factories like Tora in Mugamba commune could be taxed 10-15% of their profit which will be granted to the commune. Also developing twinnings with municipalities in other countries, particularly European ones, calls for the decentralized cooperation that I have already mentioned.

Interview by Alphonse Yikeze