RUTANA March 12nd (ABP) – Minister of Finance, Budget and Economic Development Cooperation Domitien Ndihokubwayo ended, in Rutana (south-east) on Friday, his tour in the regions of the country for the popularization campaign of Burundi National Development Plan 2018-2027.
As the meeting was held in that province and attended by the provincial officials, the communal administrators, the members of the communal councils, the communal technical advisers in charge of the development of Bururi, Makamba, Rumonge and Rutana provinces, Minister Ndihokubwayo indicated that this plan will take a budget of 20 billion Burundian francs and asked everyone among the attendees to go and popularize it and especially to make it their own.
In an interview with the press after the workshops, the Minister said that the dissemination sessions of the plan began with a workshop dedicated to the representatives of people, parliamentarians and executives working in the office of the Burundi ombudsman and continued in the regions by grouping the provinces. For him, those workshops were an opportunity to explain the content and the true merit of the National Development Plan.
The specificity of the plan, the Minister said, is that it was drawn up by a team of 70 Burundian experts who met for a whole year to work on this document. What is important is that being Burundians themselves, and being aware of the lives of Burundians, they know the problems of Burundians and discuss with Burundians daily and they can also provide solutions that are adapted to the Burundi context. What is also more important is that this plan is being explained to all Burundians for them to make a national development plan their own, and not a plan that has been made for others.
State institutions will work to achieve the expected results, but every Burundian will contribute individually for Burundi to achieve the goal of economic growth, from 4% today to 10.7% in 2027.
This plan places special emphasis on increasing and improving the quality of agricultural production. This implies that everything will be done to improve the farming techniques of Burundians, because if we try to look back, we notice that the way Burundians cultivate today are similar to the ways of the 1900s, which cannot continue in this way because the Burundian population has increased significantly and the land has deteriorated.
Modern methods are needed to renew Burundi arable land and make it more fertile, Minister Ndihokubwayo said. It is not just a matter of mechanization because mechanization is part of the analysis of profitability and the instruments of production. This time it is the combination of all the techniques that are necessary to be able to produce more, but also to have products of quality, Minister Ndihokubwayo concluded.