By Thibaud C. NAGNONHOU, A/R Ouémé-Plateau,

The draft 2021 budget of the Ministry of Economy and Finance amounts to 25,376,053,000 in 2021 against 18,166,717,000 in 2020, an increase of 7,209,336,000 for a rate of change of 39.68%. The Minister of Economy and Finance, Romuald Wadagni, was in front of the deputies of the Budget Committee, Tuesday, November 17, to defend the file.

The draft budget of the Ministry of Economy and Finance for the financial year 2021 has now been scanned for the Parliament's Budget Committee. From the presentation made last Tuesday by Minister Romuald Wadagni, we note that it amounts to the sum of 25,376,053,000 CFA francs against 18,166,717,000 CFA francs in 2020, an increase of 39.68%.

Staff costs increased by 25.10 per cent.

This increase is due to the financial effects that would result from the category advancements but also the envelope to be devoted to the clearance of reminders dating from before 2016 as well as the recruitment of 100 agents for the benefit of the Directorate-General for Taxes. There is the increase of 12.85% in credits for the purchase of goods and services. This is due to the improvement in the operating appropriations of the accounting posts and the delegations of Financial Control at the deconcentrated level. There is also the 20.81% increase in "current transfers" credits, which is explained by the improvement in subsidies allocated to the structures under the Ministry's supervision, in particular Andf, Centif, Ut/Fed and Anssfd. Finally, the budget saw a substantial increase of 136.46% in capital expenditure.

This is due to the inclusion of sufficient resources for the construction of the archive building and the block of the Directorate-General for the Budget as well as the construction and repair of revenues from Taxes, Customs and treasury at the municipal level. The Minister of Economy and Finance returned to the budgetary outlook for the year 2021 at the level of his ministerial department.

It informs that five programmes have been selected. There is the management and support of the ministry's services, the purpose of which is to improve the performance of the ministry's structures; the management of the macroeconomic framework that aims to consolidate the stability of the macroeconomic framework; the mobilization of financial resources and the management of the State's treasury, the aim of which is to improve the capacity to finance State expenditure; the management of public expenditure to consolidate public expenditure and finally the management of State property and land to improve the management of movable and immovable Property of the State and the national land heritage.

Lights

The national treasurer did not fail to review the appropriations opened for 2021 and the focus on the Public Investment Program (Pip) of the Mef. Romuald Wadagni says four projects are selected in the ministry's Pip portfolio under 2021 management. These are the Economic Governance Support Project (Page); the Benin Domestic Revenue Growth Support Project (Paarib); the Project for the Construction of the Buildings of the State Financial Authorities and the Project for the Construction of the Archives Building and the Vocational Training Centre of the Central Finance Administration. The forecast amount of the portfolio is 7.09375 billion CFA francs, including 7 billion CFA francs from the domestic resources of the national budget. The national treasurer also gave the deputies an update on the implementation of the recommendations they made during the study of the draft 2020 management budget of the Mef.

Thus, with regard to the recommendation relating to the balance sheet of the debts contracted and their payment schedules to the Autonomous Amortization Fund (Caa), the Minister suggested that in compliance with the provisions of Article 48 of the Organic Law on the Finance Law (Lolf), The Ministry of Economy and Finance has drawn up two important documents as an annex to the 2021 Finance Bill that summarize the debt policy in Benin. This is the debt strategy paper and the developed state of outstanding government debt service maturities. These two explanatory annexes should now improve the information of MePs on the issue. Regarding the recommendation on the completion of the construction works of the infrastructures of the financial authorities of the central administration, Romuald Wadagni reported that as of March 2020, the outstanding statements have been paid, this has led to the resumption of work on the sites, some of which have been received. In addition, for the 2021 management, the project benefits from an allocation of 2 billion which will make it possible to continue and complete most of the projects still in progress informs the Minister of Economy and Finance.