27 December 2007
Bujumbura — The Finance Minister, Ms Clotilde Nizigama, will try to explain the draft law governing the annual budget on 27 December 2007 in the national assembly.
On Friday 21 December 2007, the Second Vice-President of the Republic, Gabriel Ntisezerana, failed to convince Members of the parliament to allot a small budget to the agriculture ministry and an increased budget to the Presidency of the Republic and the National Intelligence Services. For the first time since the independence of Burundi, the agriculture ministry has been allotted only 2 percent of the budget.
Since the Second Vice-President of the Republic was unable to give satisfactory explanations concerning the budget law, a parliamentarian commission to collect and analyze amendments to be incorporated in the budget law was set up. This commission has already finished its work and its report is ready.
Members of the parliament demand the funds allotted to the agriculture ministry be increased, as this had been one of the promises of the President of the Republic. They also demand that the budget allotted to the National Intelligence Services and the Presidency of the Republic be decreased.
The reputation of the National Intelligence Services has recently been tarnished. An officer of this department which is at the service of the head of state, major Nsabimana, blamed his superiors for their involvement in the armed robberies that have plagued Burundi since CNDD-FDD came to power. The Intelligence Services is also dogged by extra-judicial killings that were carried out in Kinama district of Bujumbura, and in Muyinga where more 35 persons mysteriously disappeared, later to be found floating dead in Ruvubu river.
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