First of all
sorry for being absent for so long...
I have been
looking at the public finances figures provided by the Central Bank of Congo on
their website. For the year 2013, the budget deficit was a meager USD 10k which
is not bad for any country; although a surplus would have been good for a
country that cannot raise funds abroad to finance its deficit…
Anyway, when we
look closer at those figures compared to the 2013 budget, we realize how poorly
the government performed during that year. It is either they have difficulties
preparing a realistic budget or they simply registered a poor performance in terms
of collecting revenues.
Indeed, in 2013,
the government has only achieved 59% of its budget in terms of revenues. As a
result, in order to keep the budget “balanced” the government has squeezed its
expenses. For example, the government has planned to pay its local debts up to
USD 86m (which is already a tiny amount) and in reality only paid USD 83k,
which represents only 0.1% of its 2013 budget.
The fact that
the government is not paying its local debts has obvious negative consequences
for the economy. Indeed, the main debtors are Congolese companies/business(wo)men
and not paying them has a huge impact on their cash-flow and revenues. It
limits their ability to grow and to create jobs. Some businesses had to borrow
funds from the banking sector to win these public tenders and cannot respect
their commitments today.
The overall debt
(extern and internal) has been paid up to 34% of the budget. I argue that the
macroeconomic stability observed lately would not have been the same if the
government had made those payments.
However, when it
comes to “remuneration”, the realization rate jumps to 95%. According to the
Central Bank figures, this category represented 37% of the total government
expenses in 2013!
On another note,
we are still waiting for the new government, 6 months after it was announced.
The current one is kept busy by the day to day activities and cannot take any
new commitment. The direct consequences are fewer orders, less payments and
therefore a reduction of the economic activities in several sectors where the
State is one of the most important customers such as automobile for example…
