The Ombudsman office faces problems due to the suspension of funding from international organisation. This handicaps some scheduled activities of the institution, said the ombudsman during his biannual report presented to MPs on August 11th, 2017.
Edouard Nduwimana, Burundi Ombudsman: “We owe more than BIF 300 million to some of our partner institutions”
The main problem that the institution faces today is a lack of money. The Ombudsman says this is made much worse by the suspension of international cooperation. “The implementation of the missions of the northern branch is facing budgetary challenges because the Swiss government, which financed it, suspended its cooperation.” This interruption has also caused other problems such as debt. “We owe more than 300 million to institutions we partner with,” said Edouard Nduwimana, the national ombudsman.
Nduwimana also said that many projects cannot be executed because of a lack of finances. “The insufficient budget is the main handicap that we encounter in our every day’s activities. Our institution does not have enough resources to achieve its missions. When it needs to expand its work across the whole country, this becomes quite impossible due to the insufficient financial resources. ”
He says they have a plan to work across the whole country and appeals to the MPs to consider the financial problem in the next annual budget plan “You have to consider this challenge. For example in 2011, the ombudsman association’s budget was equivalent to more than BF 1.3 billion but now only BF 800 million is allocated to the institution. You see that there is a big difference,” he said.
The Ombudsman office exists in Burundi since 2010 and it works in prevention, mediation and solving conficts.
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