Burkina Faso after the recent socio-political shocks

From the recent mutinies of our national army (including the soldiers of the Presidential Security Regiment’s protest over the non-payment of various allowances), to the protest marches of certain victims of business and the demonstrations (often including home burnings) of numerous pupils and students in reaction to the death of Justin Zongo, it’s finally clear that peace was and will be a treasure, even more fragile than we could believe. The use of arms or civil demonstrations has become, in a short space of time, a normal way to make demands. This shows all too clearly that the communication between the middle and the upper hierarchy has not been functioning well. Given this, it’s of no surprise that the President Blaise Compaoré has put his trust in a shrewd ‘communicator’ in Luc Adolphe Tiao.

Aware of the seriousness of the recurring breaches in communication, the president of Burkina Faso decided to take control of the portfolio of the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps the revelations on the workings of finance in the garrisons that were made during direct consultations with non-commissioned officers and men of rank appeared to him serious enough to take military office himself. Is he not also, as outlined in the constitution, the supreme chief of the armed forces? Under current conditions, this remains part of his constitutional obligations, despite the relevant clauses of article 42 of the basic law.

It’s well known that discipline constitutes the main strength of armed forces. Yet it is also true that money is what counts in war, and better financial organisation within the army would allow the president of Burkina Faso to sustainably resolve the current military crisis.

However, there needs always to be respect for a certain level of equality in salaries between the military and civilians with the constant aim of safeguarding the purchasing power of each socio-professional category. From this viewpoint, the go-ahead for the correction of civil servants’ promotions by, at the latest, September 2011 is a move in the right direction.

In any case, within the military barracks, as well as in civil life in Burkina Faso, the cause of these incidents resides undeniably in the feeling of injustice, and the perception by a sidelined majority of our population of an apparent and extremely large disparity in living standards between citizens of the same country. These feelings and perceptions are, incontestably, the burning universal factors contributing to the destabilisation of social peace and of the concept of ‘living together’. How then could the new prime minister work to durably resolve the causes of these repeated incidents?

Portrayed pejoratively by many national media such as ‘pompier de service’ or ‘l’homme de la situation’, it seems premature before the usual period of grace (that the whole of society has just granted him) to carry any assessment of the capacity of the new prime minister and his new team to stem the current crisis, owing essentially to the complexity of the task assigned to him by the president of Burkina Faso.

It needs to be emphasised that the current crisis is structural in nature and demands equally structural measures by the new prime minister and his government to bring the country out of the crisis and into an ‘emergent orbit’. Such a plan would include the removal of the local development tax, the reduction by 10 per cent of the rate of the single tax on wages and salaries, the lowering (thanks to state subsidies) of the cost of staple goods, the abolition of price setting for medical procedures, the removal of outstanding penalties resulting from electricity bills and the diligent treatment of judicial cases. All of this would undeniably constitute a good start.

We can never pretend to know a man well, but Luc Adolphe Tiao has shown himself at the start of this period of scrutiny to be a man of faith, peace and conviction. Looking at his first emergency measures, he appears to have taken the bull by the horns, particularly when one considers the impressive list of consultations that have been held with traditional and/or religious authorities, political parties of the presidential majority, civil society actors and above all the political parties of the opposition. Other concrete actions will certainly have to be joined to these first measures. All Burkinabe, each in their own way, should be invited to actively contribute towards an end to the current crisis. Indeed, during these last 20 years, for all that we can criticise (nothing is perfect, far from it!), Burkina Faso has been reputed for its stability and its social peace.

These stability gains well deserve to be protected as it’s from this base that we must consolidate the democratic process. There is no joy to be found in seeing a significant list of travel cancellations to our country since the start of the troubles, with even the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs having strongly and officially advised against travel to Burkina Faso.

The departure of all Japanese volunteers from our country is equally sad to see. It is thus imperative to find the ways and means to quickly exit from the crisis. With this in mind, we must welcome the meeting of the minister of foreign affairs with the representatives of accredited bodies in Burkina Faso. In the same manner, we must hope that the future meeting of the minister of foreign affairs with the Burkinabe community in France will constitute another step forward. Burkina Faso is a safe country, home to many foreigners who have settled down without worries or fear. Indeed, a telling statistic is that the number of French people living in Burkina Faso vastly exceeds the number of Burkinabe residing in France, which isn’t the case in other African countries.

Even the image of Burkinabe, whether at home or abroad, is an excellent one. We must then strive to preserve this beautiful image, which without doubt brings pride to our country. And during this period of political turbulence and controversy, rapid therapeutic solutions should be tested in order to limit the damage done, and we shall all gain tomorrow if we concern ourselves with the essential of today. Certainly, we must remember that the new government has already carried out a number of welcome measures.

However, several other major challenges still face us in the here and now. What are they?

THE STANDARDISATION AND STRICT CONTROL OF THE COST OF STAPLE GOODS

The price of foodstuffs and certain staple goods, including petrol, must not only be made subject to state subsidies. These prices will have to be made subject to a certain standardisation and strict control to allow people to maintain a minimum level of purchasing power. It will serve no purpose to raise the salaries of civil servants or the military if the price of staple goods doesn’t stop rising. The snake may bite its own tail. Yet the regulations of the price of staple goods mustn’t come at the cost of forgetting the primacy of health.

PUBLIC HEALTH

The problem consists of providing the rural population with access to drinking water and medical care. If the removal of the price setting of medical procedures can constitute a first response, the second should be to go further with the development of an emergency kit: many are the penniless people who arrive at a hospital and are not able to meet the payment of the first medical prescription. The development of an initially free medical system through the provision of a free emergency medical kit would be a considerable step forward. One can legitimately argue the weakness of state finances, but don’t we also say that you can’t put a price on health?

In any of these beneficial health measures, the success and perfection of this health system would lie in the implementation of a form of universal healthcare that would integrate the whole population into the system. The National Social Security Fund could constitute the basis of the necessary pooling of resources until significant contributions come in from other populations. In any case, regarding the healthcare of our peoples, no sacrifice is ever enough. The shadow of being hospitalised always constitutes an extra nightmare for those who are not able to meet medical costs. It will be a wise policy choice, not least as the counterpart of public health lies in national education. The better people are sensitised to certain disease risks, the better they are able, preventively, to avoid them.

NATIONAL EDUCATION

We believe this to be the most crucial challenge for the future of our country. The better the younger generation are educated to tackle the issues of the coming century, the greater will be the chances of development in Burkina Faso and the better off our people will be. We would have to greater cultivate the direction of the nation and the state to devise, design, build and improve our education system to educate our youth in the disciplines and subjects indispensable to our development and to our greater welfare. It’s not surprising that the finishing of our houses is in the dire state that it is because we don’t have the best plumbers, solar energy or air-conditioning specialists, plasterers, carpenters nor joiners. We should popularise and encourage the establishment of professional schools to meet such needs.

At the same time, the internet and school canteen should be restored in primary schools, secondary schools and colleges. Lastly, and of fundamental importance, we should create a better match between available jobs and the skills that will be taught in our institutes and vocational training schools, which must at all times remain accessible to ordinary Burkinabe. It’s more than a desperate situation, as much for the parents as for the youth themselves, when pupils and students at the end of their educational cycle are unable to find work. Yet public service must not be the only significant job market. The guidance of pupils and students will have to be done with an awareness of various job outlets and the availability of work in the aforementioned sectors.

This statistical matching must be implemented through the Department of Studies and Planning (DEP), working together with a joint commission made up between the Ministry of Higher Secondary Education and Scientific Research on the one hand and the different heads of vocational schools and the Ministry of Youth, Vocational Training and Employment on the other, and all of this with the view of building and strengthening a sustainable economy.

THE ECONOMY

The economy is, par excellence, the foundation for all policy actions. To ‘compete’, you need competitive businesses and a domestic market that can carry its own weight. Burkina Faso is the main provider of meat to Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and a good number of other countries in the region. More than ever, the challenge consists of further strengthening an economy mainly orientated towards our own strengths. To the envy of many other countries, we have significant human resources to achieve this, not only intellectual but rural, agricultural, pastoral and artisanal. We need to actively upgrade these different sectors through our local authorities. It is from them and their upgrading that we must begin step by step towards the recovery of a sustainable development in our country.

With this in mind, the installation of reservoirs in villages, the development of light industrial processing and the pursuit of an emergent service economy or service sector will without doubt absorb unemployed youth and raise the state coffers with foreign currency. Only at such a point would confidence be renewed in the men and women of politics.

ON THE POLITICAL FRONT: THE HANDOVER OF POWER

The handover of power, beyond the constitutional rules of the current two-term limitation on holding presidential office, unavoidably constitutes a natural law which no global leader could sustainably oppose. In Burkina Faso, the recurring question of the revision of article 37 plays on everyone’s mind. Several political leaders, as many from the presidential majority as from the opposition parties, have already expressed their views on this constitutional amendment or non-amendment. The two positions are incompatible. In our humble opinion, the constitutional amendment is inconceivable under current circumstances without the consent and full support of all sections of our people, including the opposition parties. In such a case there would be no ambiguity, and the recent various demonstrations must serve to guide us.

Indeed, the obvious frustrations of the Burkinabe opposition parties can be understood. These opposition parties are well aware that in the current democratic game in Burkina Faso, they will not be able to (unless there is a better mobilisation of the electorate in the towns and above all in the countryside) gain access through majority to national representation and even less so to the highest summit of the state.

Be that as it may, we will all win in Burkina Faso if we bring together all the sections of our people, including civil society actors and opposition parties, in the announced policy reforms and, in particular, by taking into consideration the profound aspirations of our peoples (concerning education, health, employment, etc).

Only in fighting effectively against social inequalities by offering a noticeably more equitable sharing of the existing riches in our country will we be able to harvest all of our strengths and our intelligence to the service of our people. We are perfectly aware, due to constraints of all kinds, that it’s easier to write than to realise these wishes.

However, to govern is to foresee and to predict, to try and resolve here and now the existential problems of our people. It is the responsibility of our government, and of all people, at whatever level they may find themselves, to contribute to the construction of the Burkinabe edifice. Together, we shall overcome!

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* Paul Kéré is a lawyer in Nancy, France.
* This article was first published by Le Faso.net.
* © Copyright Le Faso.net
* Translated from French by Ben Radley.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.