The National Assembly held on Tuesday, October 20, 2020, its 5th plenary session of the 2nd ordinary session of the year 2020. A session chaired by the Second Vice-President of parliament, Ms Ibrahima Méïmounatou, was devoted to the 2021-2023 budget orientation debate.

It was a question for the MPs to immerse themselves in the essence of the priorities that will be those of the government and displayed in the draft 2021 management budget and to make recommendations to the government taking into account the needs of the population.

"The examination of the multiannual budgetary and economic programming document is a requirement of Organic Law no. 2014/013 of 27 July 2014 on finance laws.... The budget orientation debate allows MPs to strengthen their capacities and knowledge before the vote on the draft finance law and to give their opinions on hypotheses, economic policy options and their translation," said Ibrahima Méïmounatou.

For the Chairman of the Law Commission, Mawussi Djossou Semodji, the interest of the budgetary orientation debate results from the government's reaffirmed political will to be in line with the requirements of financial transparency and governance, included in the Finance Act.

"The government has developed the macroeconomic and fiscal outlook for the period 2021-2023 and the law says that the National Assembly must hold a debate on these three-year perspectives. This is to enable the National Assembly to better understand the government's intentions in terms of budgetary programming and to better carry out its mission of monitoring the government's action. So the exercise is just to see if what the government is doing seems right. We have said overall that it is good, but we have made recommendations to take into account a number of elements that we consider important for the population," he said.

It should be noted that the discussions allowed parliamentarians and the Government Commissioner, Sani Yaya, Minister of Economy and Finance, to agree on macroeconomic and budgetary forecasts for the next three years.