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BURKINA FASO SELF ASSESSMENT VISIT

At its first session held in Jordan in 2006, the Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) requested the Secretariat to develop a self-assessment checklist to facilitate the provision of information by states parties and signatories on the implementation of some key articles of the convention (resolution 1/2). In its second session of 2008 held in Indonesia, the Conference requested the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes) to explore the option of modifying the existing checklist as to create a comprehensive information-gathering tool that might serve as a useful starting point for collecting implementation information in any future reviews ( resolution 2/1).

The checklist was developed and countries were approached to sensitize them to join the Voluntary Pilot Review Programme, and 29 countries adhered to it, included Rwanda which joined it in August 2008. That Voluntary Pilot Review Programme consists in assessing by peer countries, how they implement the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). Rwanda is reviewed by Burkina Faso and Poland, while Burkina Faso is reviewed by Rwanda and Greece. The review is coordinated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODOC) experts.  

The Rwandese delegation at the phase of the country visit was comprised of Mr NZINDUKIYIMANA Augustin, Deputy Ombudsman and Mr Léon Fidèle NDIZIHIWE, Rwandan experts of Voluntary Pilot Review Programme. 14 institutions involved in fighting corruption in Burkina Faso were visited including the State Control High Authority, and the Fighting Fraud National Coordination, the Burkinabé anticorruption agencies.

4 NGOs and members of civil society were also visited. A meeting was also held with “le Réseau des Parlementaires Burkinabés pour la Lutte contre la Corruption «Burkindi » (Burkinabe Parliamentarian Members Network of Fighting Corruption) ;

The reviewers’ team had the pleasure of being received, at separate times, by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice. The reviewers observed that Burkina Faso has conducted a lot of reforms. In fact, many institutions have been created in order to curb corruption.

Thus, lack of effectiveness in fighting corruption is observed in all institutions of Burkina Faso. All of the institutions involved in fighting corruption and where more temptations of corruption are located have no statistics or have poor statistics of their staff punished for corruption. The only institution that has listed the sanctions inflicted to its employees is the Customs General Directorate in the following table:

The examples above show how far corruption is tolerated in Burkina Faso. That was also declared by the Deputy Director General of customs who specified that in handling case of corruption, they analyse the situation in which it is committed, and that have consequence that some cases can be tolerated.

The inefficiency of punishing corruption is also a result of insufficiency of legal framework. Burkina Faso does not have anti corruption law, while the penal code is not sufficient for cracking down on corruption. The only persons punishable by that penal code are public officers. The consequence of that is the impunity of corrupt private sector employers and employees, NGOs, Civil Society and international organisms. It is important to specify that NGOs and civil society are active in combating corruption in Burkina Faso. It is from its activities that Politicians and other leaders have accepted that there is corruption in Burkina Faso administration. It was very interesting to meet a commission of Catholic Church which was pioneer to ask to the Catholic Church leaders to curb corruption within its administration, and after participate then combating it in public administration.

All institutions visited, including parliamentarians, public institutions and civil society are unanimous on two statements:

The major cause of impunity of corruption in Burkina Faso is lack of political will.