Public investment management is a hot topic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The need to put in place an up-to-date regulatory framework is becoming more and more pressing. Thus, the draft decree on the management of public investments was adopted by the government during the meeting of the Council of Ministers held on Thursday, May 25 under the leadership of Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde Kyenge. The Deputy Minister of Planning presented the project, which will be enriched and amended so that the management of public investments becomes an effective instrument of public management and increased mobilization of resources.
The DRC has had a very low level of public investment in recent years, i.e. 4% of GDP since 2003. A level almost half the average for sub-Saharan African countries and low-income countries. This situation prompted the government to propose the draft decree to govern the management of public investments, with the aim of strengthening public expenditure in an efficient manner and supporting priority development sectors.
The draft decree provides in particular for making public investments more visible and traceable by setting up a Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Monitoring-Evaluation (PPBSE) system. It will also enshrine the dialogue of databases with compulsory sharing in a Consolidated Database for a more exhaustive Public Investment Program (PIP), and will guarantee a rigorous selection of public investments on the basis of objective criteria.
The draft decree will also ensure compliance with the process of maturation of projects, their planning, execution as well as their monitoring and evaluation. Finally, it will provide investment projects with a unique number that will follow them from the beginning to the end of their life cycle and will automate ex-ante, mid-term and ex-post evaluations, monitoring of projects in progress. execution as well as auditing.
These innovations have been proposed to give substance to the recommendations made following the assessment of public investment management carried out in 2022 by the International Monetary Fund. The latter also noted other dysfunctions and drew up a dozen reforms to be carried out as a priority to strengthen the effectiveness of public spending.
In short, the implementation of this decree is a key step in the management of public investments in the DRC.