Burkina-Faso: Briefing on the Council of Ministers of 30 November 2022
The Council of Ministers held on Wednesday 30 November 2022 in Ouagadougou was chaired by the President of the transition, Captain Ibrahim Traoré. During the meeting, the Council adopted a draft law on the depoliticisation of the public administration and the strengthening of meritocracy. This draft text was inspired by Article 12 of the Constitution of 2 June 1991, the work of the African Peer Review Mechanism of 2006 and the work of the Collège des Sages following the crisis over the Norbert Zongo affair, which all recognised the need to depoliticise the public administration.
Indeed, the content of this text aims at enabling the Administration to be republican. Thus, the reinforcement of meritocracy insofar as what undermines the rule of law, what undermines the foundation of the real construction of the country, “is the fact that we see not only laxity in the public administration, favouritism and a certain number of social aspects on which we base ourselves to put aside well-trained and competent people,” said the Burkinabe Minister of State.
The adoption of this law will make it possible to affirm that to occupy a position of responsibility, there are characteristics that must be taken into account, in addition to morality, which make it possible to select people who are capable of being up to the task,” said Minister BAZIE, Minister of the Burkinabè Civil Service.
According to this law, certain practices are now prohibited. These are essentially: the use of State property to campaign, wearing effigies in the public administration on behalf of political parties, setting up political committees within the administration, and even raising political subscriptions within the public administration.
Furthermore, the Council of Ministers adopted the draft budget for the year 2023, for the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Forecasting. Aboubacar NACANABO, the Minister in charge of Finance, stated that the main lines of this budget show that the security issue is a priority. Therefore, the bulk of this budget is oriented towards security with its corollary, the humanitarian issue.
Indeed, this budget has been set in revenue at 2600 billion CFA francs and in expenditure at 3200 billion. According to Minister NACANABO, “This shows a financing need of 600 billion CFA francs that must be sought”. Concerned by this, the Government intends to rely on a reasonable debt at an acceptable cost, to continue the modernisation of the revenue authorities for an optimal mobilisation of revenue and to rationalise public expenditure.
