The cooperative societies project is promising, the Minister of Interior, Community Development and Security was trusting. The Honorable Martin Niteretse who was specific in giving an average of 70% was speaking on Tuesday, February 21, 2023 during the oral question session with debate to three members of Government. These were also Mr Audace Niyonzima, Minister of Finance, Budget and Economic Planning and Dr Sanctus Niragira, Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock.

Those oral questions with debate came at the end of the report of the visit by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and Finance, Economic Affairs and Planning on the assessment of the adequacy of village cooperative projects in relation to those included in the communal development plans (PCDC) in french accronym.
According to the Honorable Martin Niteretse, 6% of the indicators are red and 24% are yellow, i.e, the rating is poor.

According to the ranking, which dates back to November 2022, the Kanyonga cooperative society in the commune of Mukike in the province of Bujumbura, which specialized in the production of potato seeds, came first with a performance rate of 827%. Also in Bujumbura province, the second place is taken by the Nyabunyegeri cooperative in Mutimbuzi commune with a performance rate of 370%. The 3rd place goes to the cooperative society of Kazebe in Gitanga commune, Rutana province with a performance rate of 336% against 314% achieved by the cooperative society of Gatonga in Giharo commune of the same province. A performance rate of 297% puts the Muyanga cooperative society in the commune of Butezi in the province of Ruyigi in 5th place.
The Minister of Home Affairs, Community Development and Public Security dismissed out of hand the wrong argument of those who grabbed the first round of the 10 million funds allocated to the commune, believing it was a gift from the President of the Republic, when in fact they had signed the loan contract. They are summoned to be accountable for their actions. Moreover, 600 million has already been reimbursed, i.e, 60% of it.

For the first and second rounds, the Government has invested in the start-up activities of the countryside cooperative societies, which are now called upon to draw up their own projects to present to the banks for credit. Otherwise, the Government is not in a position to allocate funds each year to the villages, whose number will increase dramatically with the new administrative reform.

For the plenary, the major challenge lies in the management of the population and the provision of inputs. Another shortcoming, and not the least, is ignorance. The ideas that emanate from the population have been condensed in the PCDCs but the communal administrators have not known what to do with them. A lot of training is required as even the parliamentarians do not know much about it. They also recommended that each hill cooperative society should have a supervisor.

The Minister Martin Niteretse surrendered in recognition of the Government’s inability to assign a supervisor to each hill cooperative society. Only FONIC and ANACOOP should be decentralized to the communes. The FONIC is supposed to support the cooperative societies in project development and accounting, while ANACOOP should be at their sides. It is the people on their hill who express their needs. But the ideas of this population are distorted at the commune level. When the population feels left out, the results are not good. From now on, the needs of the population on their hill should be taken into account. The consultants should be excluded from this kind of exercise, which should reflect reality and not ambition.