By Reuters
The International Monetary Fund said it had approved $7.6 million debt relief to Burundi to help address the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It said the relief for three months would be potentially raised to $24.97 million over the next 21 months, if resources are available.
“IMF debt relief will help free up resources for public sector health needs, including other emergency spending and help mitigate the balance of payments shock posed by the COVID-19 pandemic,’’ the IMF said in a statement.
The IMF said it has revised downwards economic growth projections for 2020 by 5.3 percentage points to -3.2 per cent this year.
“The pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing economic challenges and creates significant external financing needs in 2020 and 2021, mainly as a result of lower exports, elevated imports needs and reduced remittances inflows,’’ it said.
Burundi has so far had 328 cases of COVID-19 and one death.
Power remains privatised – Senate
By Chris Ndibe
Sen. Gabriel Suswan, the Chairman Senate Committee on Power says the senate has no plans to reverse the privatisation of the power sector.
Suswan made this known in Abuja during the committee’s oversight visit to some government structures being occupied by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC).
According to him, the senate is not pushing for the reversal of privatisation of the sector as that will distal the economy and create issues of trust in the international community.
“We encourage the government to continue with the privatisation as far as the power sector is concerned
“There are teething problems and those problems will not be reason for the review of the privatisation that was done and people have bought.
“All we can do is to try to make sure there is enhanced performance in the sector to create efficiency but unfortunately, the process itself started on a faulty note.
“Some of the parameters used were a bit faulty so the sector has been faced with problems that ordinarily would have been avoidable.
“So what we are trying to do in the National Assembly (NASS) is to identify the core challenges so that we can help the executive in addressing them,” he said.
Suswan said that the duty of NASS was to oversight the activities of the other arms of government.
“This is why we are here today, to see what we have been told by the Nigeria Electricity Liability Management Company (NELMCO),” he said.
He said NELMCO told the committee that they handed over some assets to AEDC when the company was incorporated and the committee needed to be sure it was true.
“ So here is the assets of government and it is being occupied by AEDC which is a private company and we are wondering why they are occupying government property,
“The managing director has told us they are supposed to be paying rent but because the property has been advertised for sale, they also have the right of first refusal.
“We are satisfied that the building is here and AEDC has accepted that the building belongs to government, and that they are tenants here until when they are able to procure it if they win the bid,” he said.
The Managing Director of AEDC, Mr. Ernest Mupwaya said the committee was touring the assets that belonged to NELMCO.
Mupwaya said that AEDC was occupying two of the assets, “adding we are interested iing procure them though we are owing NELCOM some rent but we are already in discussion to settle the rent.
“We are in talks with NELMCO and as part of showing seriousness. We intend to buy the place,” he said.
