• The NGO ORCADE reveals a low capacity to absorb resources
• More than 500 million investment forecasts rejected in Houndé
• Soaring prices and insecurity have impacted the award and execution of contracts
The Development Capacity Building Organization (ORCADE) organized a restitution of the results of an analysis report on the impact of the Mining Fund for Local Development (FMDL) in improving the living conditions of the populations of Municipalities of Dédougou, Houndé and Soaw, Wednesday June 5, 2023, in Ouagadougou. The activity brought together the representatives of the special delegations of the Communes concerned, representatives of civil society organizations and State structures.
According to Jonas Hien, Program Director of the NGO ORCADE, this is an exercise organized every year, since the operationalization of the Mining Fund for Local Development, to monitor the operation of this Fund. ” The follow-up consists, each year, in seeing the volume of money transferred to the communities, in particular, in the Communes and the Regional Councils ; what have they done with this money, what effects and impacts are taking place, are there any difficulties in using this Fund and what are the good practical in its use “, he explained.
This year, the Communes of Houndé in the Hauts-Bassins region, Dédougou in the Boucle du Mouhoun and Soaw in the Center-West were selected for the exercise. According to Jonas Hien, sharing the results of the analysis with the actors is a tradition after each study, ” questions of sharing ideas, experiences, proposals aimed at improving the living conditions of populations, within the framework of the projects that we are going to implement with the resources of this Fund, because it is why she was voted on”.
The Municipality of Soaw anticipates in the planning of the funds received
According to the analysis report presented by the consultant and rapporteur, Rasmané Ouédraogo, at the time of carrying out the study, i.e. on March 31, 2023, the Communes of Dédougou and Houndé had received six transfers from the FMDL over the period from November 2019 to March 2023. The Municipality of Soaw also had six transfers for the same period, but had managed to budget the seventh transfer in advance, in order to plan the use of this fund. Thus, the Municipality of Houndé, which is a mining municipality, received a total transfer of 5,937,825,371 FCFA, against respectively 179,307,585 FCFA and 152,601,738 FCFA for the Municipalities of Dédougou and Soaw which are non-municipal municipalities. mining. As for the use made of these resources, at the time of carrying out the study, the Commune of Dédougou committed 80,332,482 FCFA and actually paid 70,613,585 FCFA. This gives an absorption rate of 39.38%, well below the average. The Municipality of Soaw, on the other hand, had an excellent absorption rate of around 89.17%. Indeed, the commitments amounted to 152,601,738 FCFA out of which 136,079,152 FCFA could be liquidated. Strategy, planning and budgeting could explain this quality of absorption, according to the ORCADE rapporteur. With regard to the Commune of Houndé, the rapporteur underlined that it was impossible to calculate the absorption rate on the basis of the data. ” But in view of the levels of achievement or progress of the work, we can assume that the rate is very low. We note, moreover, that more than 500 million investment forecasts were rejected by the Municipal Monitoring Committee for non-compliance.eligibility. This testifies to the difficulties of planning the investments to be made and confirms low absorptive capacity », he writes in his report.
As justification, the president of the Special Delegation of Dédougou, Dieudonné Toudfo, indicated that apart from the often high balances, due to the procurement procedures, the year 2022 was a special year because of the changes that have taken place. 2022 was therefore a year of regularization of projects and this continued in 2023. His counterpart from Houndé, Souleymane Dianda, agrees in the same vein, indicating that his Delegation found that the transfers had been budgeted until 3e transfer They are the ones who carried out the budgeting of the 4e5e6e and even 7e transfer in progress. In addition, the report emphasizes that apart from the low or insufficient amounts, the first municipal officials deplored the late repayment of resources and suggest expanding the areas of intervention of the FMDL. Other difficulties highlighted by the report are the complexity of the procedures for awarding and terminating public contracts, the soaring prices of building materials, the blockage crises within the Commune of Houndé, the lack of control, and the insecurity which has impacted the implementation of projects in some municipalities.
The projects selected under the FMDL meet the eligibility criteria, according to ORCADE
The economic sectors of the three Communes which received the investments are education, health, water and sanitation, commercial and productive infrastructure, energy, transport and roads for the Commune of Houndé. For the rapporteur, this indicates that FMDL resources are investing in human capital, an essential factor for any development. They will therefore increase and improve supply and yields in different sectors. Hermann Douanio of CERA-FP, for his part, remains dissatisfied with the fact that certain investments are made in non-structuring projects, that is to say, which do not create wealth for the municipalities concerned. ORCADE Director of Programs Jonas Hien adds that this is the focus of the study. It is a question of seeing, he says, if the projects that have been implemented are projects eligible for the Mining Fund whose spirit is to finance wealth-creating projects capable of replacing the resources drawn from the sector as well as possible. mines. And for him, the projects carried out by the target municipalities meet, for the most part, the eligibility criteria for the FMDL. The choice of the Communes for the study was also motivated by two factors. ” The three municipalities chosen are part of our partners, such as OXFAM. The other criterion is that we have taken Communes of which one has more money, another which is in the middle and the third which has little money, to see in terms of volume of money from the three Communes , do those who have more money do better than those who have less or it is the opposite. It is a criterion which makes it possible to evaluate the Communes in terms of volumes of money “, explained Mr. Hien. He informs that each year, ORCADE will repeat the same exercise, “ because we keep a citizen watch on the Mining Fund, to see if there is any improvement in the management of this Fund or if it’s getting worse.” o
Etienne LANKOANDE (Associate)
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The Local Development Mining Fund mobilizes 50 billion FCFA each year
Lhe Local Development Mining Fund is a method of collecting mining revenue to support the implementation of structuring projects in municipalities in Burkina, adopted in 2015 by the Mining Code. Collected monthly, this fund is made up of 1% of the monthly turnover of mining companies in the production phase and holders of quarry substance exploitation permits and 20% of the proportional royalties collected by the State and linked to the value of products extracted and/or sold. According to Jonas Hien, an average of fifty billion FCFA is collected each year within the framework of the FMDL. “And if the security situation were stable, we think we could go beyond 50 billion FCFA per year,” he says. Initially, the FMDL was specifically dedicated to mining municipalities. Thanks to the mobilization of civil society actors, non-mining municipalities now benefit from the FMDL.
