The Commissioner General's message for 2014

To wish a happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year to the staff of OBR and their families as well as to OBR’s customers, stakeholders and partners

I would like to wish all OBR personnel and their families a happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year. I wish to extend the same greeting to all of our customers, stakeholders, development partners and colleagues across East Africa as we embark on what promises to be yet another exciting year of growth and development.

The past year was indeed a challenging one for OBR and there were many months in which we missed our targets. Nevertheless we recorded progress and we continued to improve the tax and investment environment in Burundi.

Some of the highlights of 2013 were:

• An impressive revenue collection of BIF [560] billion for the year, compared with Bif 526.6 billion collected in 2012. This is Bif 34 billion more than last year.
• OBR exceeded the half trillion collection figure for the second year in a row and we hit the half trillion figure in November this year. It remains our ambition to reach this figure in June by 2017.
• There is a sustained increase of Bif 259 billion per annum since 2009 (the year OBR was created) or an increase to date of 86 per cent per annum.
• OBR has doubled its efforts to fight corruption. Fourteen staff members were sent before a disciplinary committee in 2013 and 9 of those were dismissed. The 2013 East African Bribery Index scored OBR at 16.4 (a perfect score iszero) whereas in 2012 we scored 35.7. This is a 54% improvement in the bribery index that sends a strong positive message to the community, our partners and to potential investors.
• OBR remained active in improving the country’s business climate. Burundi moved up 19 places in the World Bank’s Doing Business Index, thereby placing the country amongst the world’s top 10 reformers for the third year in a row. Most notably, OBR worked alongside other agencies to establish the Single Window for Business Registration and new One-Stop Border Posts - important measures to have adopted as Burundi looks to consolidate its membership of the East African Community (EAC).
• With other stakeholders, we worked on new tax laws for Burundi. A new income tax law, a tax procedures law and a VAT amendment law were enacted, bringing the tax system more into line with other EAC states and reducing Burundi’s tax rates to regional levels.
• With support from USAID we greatly improved our communications function and reached many more taxpayers and stakeholders.
• We piloted the Authorised Economic Operators scheme that is designed to give express service along trade corridors to compliant taxpayers and we intend to roll the scheme out fully in 2014.
• OBR continued to improve the quality of service for taxpayers. The Customs computer system, ASYCUDA World, went live in May 2013 enabling us to provide faster and better service to taxpayers. Taxpayers and declarants may use the system from their own offices, thus speeding up Customs clearances.
• We signed a cooperation agreement with the Federal Chamber of Commerce and Industry and we look forward to our continued close collaboration for the betterment of the tax environment in Burundi. We established a joint committee with the Ministry of the Interior regarding closer cooperation and collaboration with the communes and the Municipality of Bujumbura.
• In terms of back office support, we continued to improve our Human Resources policies and procedures while refining our organisational structure and recruiting more staff. An ERP (enterprise resource planning) software package now handles finance, human resources, asset management and procurement. The Revenue Authorities Digital Data Exchange (RADDEx) system facilitates information and data sharing with sister revenue authorities in the EAC.
• OBR personnel fulfilled their social responsibilities by making a significant contribution to those traders who lost their livelihoods in the dreadful market fire earlier in the year.
• On the negative side, OBR, along with other government agencies, had its operating budget cut from BIF15 billion down to BIF13.2 billion. This cut severely restricted our day-to-day operations and the recruitment of needed personnel and therefore our capacity to collect revenues.

I would like to express our full appreciation to the compliant taxpayers for their contributions to the achievements recorded in 2013. We greatly appreciate their continued collaboration in our shared wish to see an improved investment climate in Burundi and helping deliver the nation’s development agenda.

None of the gains made would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of management and staff. For this I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to everyone working at OBR and to the Board of OBR for its oversight and guidance. We greatly appreciate our strong working relationship with our parent ministry, the Ministry of Finance and Planning.

I also wish to express my gratitude for the ever-present strong political support for OBR and the continuing generous assistance of our partners, particularly TradeMark East Africa, who provided support in the areas of technical assistance, computer systems and hardware, One-Stop Border Posts and other infrastructural enhancements. Our thanks go to our development partners that provided funding and political and moral support, including Belgian Co-operation, UK Aid and USAID and also to our many other partners, such as the IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank.

Now we need to look forward to 2014 and beyond.

As we prepare for 2014, we fully recognise that significant challenges lie ahead.

• OBR’s expansion is currently constrained by the lack of a computer system for domestic taxes – in fact we are the only revenue authority in the EAC that relies on manual systems. We hope that this deficiency will be addressed in the design of the next phase of support to OBR.
• While we have improved the tax environment in 2013, we are aware that more work needs to be done. We will continue to promote a tax system that brings in the needed revenues while guaranteeing equity and permitting minimal leakages.
• In order to meet our ambitious fiscal targets in 2014, OBR will require a realistic operating budget and significant new capital investments. OBR is in discussions with the Ministry of Finance to see if we can achieve a satisfactory budget for 2014.
• Central to all our activities will be to continue to support the Zero-tolerance Towards Corruption policy of His Excellency, the President of the Republic, Mr Pierre NKURUNZIZA. During 2014 we will introduce a new dedicated telephone hotline that will allow the public to freely report unacceptable employee or taxpayer behaviour to OBR management.
• OBR will work collaboratively with TMEA, the consultants and the diplomatic friends of OBR to build on the current phase of donor support to OBR by designing a second phase of support for the period 2014 through 2017 that will complete the reforms made to date.
• The successful design of a second phase of support will permit us to consolidate the gains made to date, expand our presence in the regions and provide better services through the use of mobile phone technology and other initiatives. This means that 2014 will be the Year of Expansion for OBR.
• OBR will prepare for and take a Fiduciary Risk Assessment (FRA) by June of 2014. The FRA will cover our tax collection, procurement and financial accounting procedures and will provide our development partners with the confidence to invest directly in the OBR.
• We will continue to work on our service delivery. In particular we will improve our capacity to conduct a wide range of taxpayer audits and we will train OBR personnel to conduct post-clearance audits at Customs. We will also open a Call Centre to extend our reach to the public and improve the quality of our service delivery.
• We will roll out the second phase of ASYCUDA World that will permit other border agencies to use the system and which will allow us to deliver a fully integrated single stop service at border posts in 2014.
• We will work with other ministries to expand Burundi’s range of tax information exchange agreements and double taxation agreements. We will work with other agencies to further improve Burundi’s rating in the World Bank’s Doing Business Index.
• The effective management of our human resources remains the central plank of our internal reform agenda and we will continue to broaden our range of HR policies and procedures, as well as our internal rules and regulations. In 2014 all OBR personnel will work to SMART objectives and we will introduce performance-based pay with the prime objective of becoming the employer of choice in Burundi.

In conclusion, I again wish all our employees, stakeholders and partners a really happy new year and I know that we will all work together to further grow the economy of Burundi in 2014 and beyond.