Burundi’s MPs condemn chaotic accounts at state bus company OTRACO
An audit found unpaid bills worth more than a billion francs, some of them owed by people who have died and by institutions that no longer exist, and the transport minister told the National Assembly he accepts all of its findings.
Burundi’s National Assembly on Thursday sharply criticised the management of OTRACO, the state public transport company, after an audit by the Cour des comptes found years of uncollected debts, loose contracts and lost revenue. The minister responsible for the company told MPs he accepted the findings in full.
“The DAF does his own thing, and the whole management does as it pleases,” said Égide Nijimbere, the minister in charge of transport, referring to the company’s director of administration and finance. He had been called before the Assembly to answer questions on the audit.
The sharpest criticism came from the speaker, GĂ©lase Daniel Ndabirabe. “OTRACO is a pit,” he said. “They work in thin air; nothing is in order. You could go there with a doctorate and come out a fool.” No rules were respected, he added, and contracts were signed and then ignored. “Does this institution exist? Is it an institution or not?”
RĂ©dempteur Gahitira, who chairs the Assembly’s standing committee on public accounts, finance, economic affairs and planning, presented the audit’s main findings. OTRACO had told auditors it could not carry out parts of its mandate because it lacked the means. The committee disagreed. It estimated that the company could earn 8 billion Burundian francs if it ran vehicle technical inspections properly, and it said OTRACO also needed to get control of its fuel spending and of the contracts it awards.
Mr Gahitira said the committee was surprised that OTRACO sends vehicles to work outside the country while Burundians at home struggle to find transport. It has asked the company’s head to put its old buses into service in Bujumbura.
Much of the audit concerns money OTRACO is owed. At the start of 2023, its customers owed it 1.057 billion francs; by the end of the year the outstanding sum had risen to about 1.2 billion. According to Mr Gahitira, this showed the company had never followed up on its unpaid bills.
The list of debtors suggests the records have not been updated for years. One account shows the National Assembly itself owing 32.8 million francs in 2023, although no attempt was made to collect it in 2024. When the committee checked, it found the Assembly owed OTRACO nothing. A church, Église du Rocher, appears to owe 3.15 million francs, but it was never asked to pay.
Other debtors no longer exist. OTRACO is still billing the office of the First Vice-President 20.7 million francs, although that office was abolished. Another 500,000 francs is recorded against the governor of Muramvya, a province that no longer exists in its old form, and its governors have changed several times. A political party, the UPD-Zigamibanga, is listed as owing 2.16 million francs, but no address could be found for it. “Who will they collect from?” Mr Gahitira asked. The ledgers also include names of people who have died, fled the country or cannot be identified, as well as ministries that have since been dissolved.
Mr Nijimbere described the company as an orphan of repeated reorganisations. “OTRACO has been moved through a great many ministries. In short, it is a nomad,” he said. He added that its original purpose no longer matched what the government wants from it today. Some of its former managers had fled, he said, and others had left to run their own businesses. Its workforce, made up mainly of drivers, conductors and mechanics, lacked the managerial and technical expertise such an organisation needs.
The minister asked MPs to support a change to OTRACO’s statutes so that it can become a commercial agency. It should no longer be a body of office-holders, he said, but “the state’s eye” for generating revenue. If nothing changes, he warned, he would be presiding over a pit.
OTRACO once ran a nationwide bus network. A 2009 study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency found it had 51 buses serving 41 routes, compared with more than 100 before the civil war.
MPs called for urgent action. “Now is the time to stand up so that OTRACO can recover its image, because the country has the experts,” said Venant Manirambona, a member of the Assembly. He quoted a Kirundi proverb whose meaning is that a danger in plain sight can still be avoided.
The Assembly did not set a deadline for the reforms, and the minister did not say when a revised statute would be presented.
