Empowering Response Burundi The title : Promotion of Tax Justice in Mpanda and Rugombo Communes.
Phase 1 : August 2018 - June 2019
The project will be executedby ERB in the two communes of its intervention area namely: Mpanda in Bubanza province and Rugombo in Cibitoke province.The capitalization of the results of the actions or projects in progress in these two municipalities explains the choice made by ERB. Municipalauthorities will first be sensitized on the contribution of CSOs in collecting and managing revenue. Then, it will be necessary to discuss on their missions and their setting up. On all the hills of two communes of intervention, the committees of citizen vigilance in fiscal matters will be set up. They will be organized around the markets. A communal committee will be made up of representatives of the citizen vigilance committees. Local committees of five members will consist of eight major markets, four per municipality.The members of the local committees will be chosen by the population of the hill where the market is located. The election ofthe members of these committees will each time be facilitated by ERB. The criteria to be a candidate for the election will be at the loanable explained to the population. Citizen vigilance committee members must be honest men and women, be able to read and write correctly, live on the hill where the market is located. After the election of members of the Citizen Watch Committees, an act of engagement will be signed. The drafting of this act willbe facilitated by ERB. This act must be read publicly by allelected members of local committees. The statutes, the rules of procedure and the code of conduct will be prepared and explained by ERB. In addition, ERB will facilitate the recognition of thesecommittees to the municipal authorities. An act of recognitionfor each committee will be signedby the municipal administrator of each commune of action of this project.
At the communal level, the Chairman of the Committee and his deputy of each localcommittee will participate in thecommunal committee. In total, the Municipal Committee will consist of eightpeople. Final beneficiaries and target groups
. Municipal and local authorities, communal staff

# Municipality Mpanda
Phase 2: July 2019 -December 2019

II. Background andrationale

With the 2005 Communal Decentralization Policy Act, municipalities have autonomyof management. Since then, the communes of Burundi have been elaborating Community Development Plans (PCDCs) in which priority projects and actions are identified. The main source of financing for these PCDCs comes mainly from municipal taxes.
According to the general observation from the evaluation of the implementation of the PCDCs of all the communes of Burundi, very few projects are executed for lack of communal budget to cover all the consequent expenses.
The situation has worsened since 2015, with the departure of most Technical and Financial Partners (TFPs) who supported the municipalities in the financing of the CPSDs in order to support the policy ofdecentralization.
Municipalities still have this need for capacity building in the collection, management of taxes as well as in the citizen control of the allocation through citizen participation. Community engagement and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) play an extremely important role in raising awareness, monitoring revenue collection and especially monitoring the municipality's spending.
Since August 2018, with the financing of its partner OXFAM NOVIB, the NGO ERB accompanies two communes of Bubanza and Cibitoke respectively the Municipalities of Mpanda and Rugombo by strengthening their capacities in tax justice.
The activities initiated in these communes focus on the following main themes:
# Information and awareness on tax civility
# Involvement and citizen participation throughout the process of mobilization and use of municipal revenues
# Promoting participatory budget involving citizen participation and vigilance
# Diagnostic analysis of the fiscal potential of the municipality
# Development of the action plan for improvement and / or reinforcement

As part of the implementation of high-indicated activities, ERB has just carried out a diagnostic study of the fiscal potential of the two municipalities and the results of this survey are not very encouraging because they reveal that the technical services are not involved. actually in the issue and actual recovery of local taxes.
The secondary data collected shows a discrepancy in the collection, or simply a deficiency of the system.The illustrative example is the suspension of the Mpanda communal accountant following precisely the tax irregularities found by the communal council.
However, the financial resources that the municipality must count must first be its own internal financial resources, resulting from the payment of taxes.
Conversely, whenthe municipality does not manage to mobilize enough internal financial resources, this municipality will always have a deficit budget and will therefore be obliged either to go into debt to balance its budget, or not to honor its commitments to its budget. population. In this situation, the municipality can never be autonomous in its political, economic and social management as desired by thelaw of decentralization of the communes; and all that she undertakes as a communal development policy will be like a dream because of a budget. It is within this support framework of the two municipalities that ERB intends to consolidate the achievements of the project to support the strengtheningof tax justice in the municipalities of Mpanda and Rugombo with a view to strengthening their capacities to improve the collection system. and transparent management of tax revenues.

II. Overall objective:

Consolidation of the achievements of the project to support the strengthening of tax justice in the communes of Mpanda and Rugombo in Bubanza and Cibitoke Provinces
III. Specific objectives :
# Contribute to the restructuring of local tax vigilance committees in the two municipalities;
# Contribute to the reinforcement of the capacities of the communal actors on the citizen participation in the process of collection of the taxes and the accountability of the communal authorities in the management of the communal revenues;
# Contribute to strengthening the system of monitoring and control of municipal tax collection.