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Burundi: Controversial Cabinet Takes Holiday
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Burundi Réalités (Bujumbura)
EDITORIAL
6 September 2007
Posted to the web 6 September 2007
Bujumbura
The current ministerial cabinet has officially begun a fifteen-day holiday despite the troubles the country is now experiencing.
This vacation follows an absence lasting two weeks because of the costly celebrations marking the two years that CNDD-FDD has spent in power. These ministers start their holiday at a time when the country is in an alarming state by every indicator.
Issues demanding attention are daily growing in numbers. The population faces severe poverty as a consequence of harsh climatic conditions coupled with a chaotic management of the country's assets.
Two years after the overwhelming victory of CNDD-FDD, Burundi is facing a precipitous downfall and hopes for the desired improvement of the current administration are fading.
The country's decline is characterized by a sharp rise in the price of all products of the first necessity, an escalating insecurity that culminated with the killings of 20 FNL dissidents and the abduction of six more on 4 September 2007 in an area guarded by the national security forces as if it were wartime, a total impunity for economic crimes, and an uncanny ignorance of the hardships that Burundians are facing on a daily basis held by the prominent leaders of the CNDD-FDD, as can be seen in the words of the leader of the party, MP Jeremie Ngendakumana, who, despite the current political impasse, said before thousands of people last Saturday that the "Head of State has settled all problems despite some minor difficulties which are to be fixed soon".
There was no mention of the the simultaneous grenade attacks against members of parliament that Mr. Ngendakumana is suspected to have orchestrated in order to punish those who had signed a petition urging president Nkurunziza to start negotiating with the opposition parties.
The current cabinet was never approved by the opposition parties as it was unconstitutionally appointed. The opposition parties demanded that president Nkurunziza appoints a cabinet in accordance with the 2005 election results and the Burundi constitution.
President Nkurunziza went on and appointed a new cabinet without consulting with the opposition parties. This new cabinet was seen by many as a reshuffle of the cabinet which was already in place as there were only 8 new ministers.
The cabinet officially just started its holiday but technically their vacation began the very first day of their appointment as their illegal appointment resulted to the current political impasse. Hence they did not accomplish much.
The opposition parties allied together with Mps who are part of Radjabu's faction and as a result, CNDD-FDD which had 64MPs in parliament has now less than 20MPs on Nkurunziza's side. President Nkurunziza has recently started meeting different political parties in an effort to unblock the current political deadlock.
Initially president Nkurunziza ran a campaign aiming at trashing Mps accusing them of failing to represent the Burundi people who elected them, but he failed to recognize that the internal division within his party is the origin of the current political impasse in Burundi.
President Nkurunziza failed to reconcile members of his own political party for which he is the head of the wise men committee. Since the the February congress that saw the sacking of Mr. Radjabu, Nkurunziza has never held a meeting with the committee that he presides in order to seek solution for his parties internal division. It is the country's assets which are wasted to finance these shameful campaigns instead of resolving issues through dialog.
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The current cabinet which failed to keep its promised 34 percent increase to civil servants was never backed by the international community. It is now faced with a shortage of funds and runs out excuses to to beg for more international support.
The CNDD-FDD government failed to implement the Priority Action Plan announced at the Donors Roundtable Conference in May. As a result the pledges announced by Burundi partners have not been disbursed. In that conference Burundi was promised $1.4 billion from its partners in support of the PAP. Burundians still await that international financial support, whose disbursement depends on improvement in the political and security situation in the country.
The lack of financial backing might explain the silence that characterizes the Nkurunziza government, but fails to justify this unmerited period of leave at time when the country needs hard working men and women to pull it back from the edge of an abyss.
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| Copyright © 2007 Burundi Réalités. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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