The outgoing president, Roch Kaboré, was re-elected in the first round of voting on 22nd November 2020. Evils to blame for his first term include the scourge of corruption. The path of the Burkinabè in the new five-year contract with the re-elected president, must be the control of the institutions and actions of each citizen.

The essential thing for a nation's development lies not in the content of its development program, but rather in the way it finances its economy and manages its resources. Is it on the basis of its own resources that it finances its economy or is it on borrowed resources? In the latter case, is the loan made under what condition ? Of the kind to compromise the subsequent financing capacities for the economy and thus the future of future generations ?

During the past five years of President Roch Kaboré's first term, Burkinabè heard that there have been several achievements in terms of infrastructure, whether road, energy, digital, etc. Several schools have been built and hospitals erected as university hospitals. These are palpable things, obtained from elements that are not palpable and not controllable by the average citizen. Are they financed from own resources? Otherwise, do they make it possible to increase the productive capacities of the economy so as to be able to absorb the debt thus created and generate margins beneficial to the nation ?

In 2019, Burkina Faso obtained from outside more than 900 billion CFA francs for the financing of its economy and more than 800 billion in 2018 . How will these credits be repaid ? What are the counterparties behind them ? We still remember the 90s when the financing of the World Bank and the IMF was accompanied by conditions (the structural adjustment program) that did not allow the Nations to develop competitive economic structures and get out of business.

As a result, unemployment has increased, poverty has worsened, and recipient nations are not only unable to repay their debts but still in need of assistance to continue financing their economies. Then came the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative for debt relief and poverty alleviation. However, underdevelopment and poverty are still pervasive, with graduates remaining unemployed.

Yet in terms of resources, Burkina Faso is also an Eldorado of raw materials, sources of foreign exchange inflows. Does the exploitation of these resources (gold, cotton, livestock, etc.) benefit the national economy? Difficult to answer when we know that  corruption has plagued the development machine in Burkina Faso, a long time ago. President Roch Kaboré's first term did not do the opposite. It has also been tainted by corruption. But the most worrying thing was the lack of sanctions against offenders, despite the multiple arrests of certain structures as well as the denunciations of the press. When we realize that we live on the basis of debt (both external and internal) that we must collectively repay and that individuals, through corruption, monopolize these resources without being sanctioned, we must really worry.

Corruption, the main cause of the misery of the populations

Bad governance or mismanagement (to address any structural manager) is the mother of corruption. Vigilance in the action of the authorities and caution in the actions of any citizen must be required. When one of your close relatives gets sick and has to be evacuated to other horizons at a cost of millions when you don't even own a quarter of the cost, you understand that the lack of national expertise is very suicidal. But when you go helplessly to watch his agony, you realize that poverty is demonic ; life may no longer make sense to you. Many of the poor in our societies seek to ensure at least two meals a day.

Unfortunately, the Burkinabe citizen is unable to establish a correlation between his situation and the quality of the governance of the country's structures. He still thinks that politics is the countryside and that the management of the city does not have much impact on his small business. Provided that he sells without disturbance, provided that his salary is regular. Except that all this can be improved through sound governance.

The citizen has a right of scrutiny over the action of his authority and the authority a duty to be accountable. It is the tax paid in the purchase of soap, rice, clothes etc.c is the tax regularly paid, it is the silver of gold, which the authority uses in the expenses it incurs. So no public service should yet be ransomed.

It is these ransoms, that is to say corruption and complicity in corruption that have kept the Burkinabe in his condition of destitution for decades. Support and collaboration with anti-corruption structures such as ren-LAC, the Supreme State And Anti-Corruption Supervisory Authority (ASCE-LC) and all other structures is imperative.

Unfortunately the Burkinabe refuses to engage out of selfishness. He wants to be the only one who benefits from a better situation. As a result, the profit goes to a minority. To give himself a good conscience, he does not hesitate to say that even the leaders are not exemplary, that the fish rots by the head.
The president of Kaboré must then work with the Burkinabè to make the fight against corruption an uncompromising fight in order to consolidate public finances during this new five-year term.