The number that doesn’t add up
What happens when a government celebrates a statistic that most of its citizens have never experienced? That is the dilemma facing Burkina Faso, where the transitional authorities have put forward a theoretical score of 85.38% for administrative performance in 2025. It is a figure that raises one uncomfortable question: can a state be run on paper while its people queue in vain?
For ordinary Burkinabè, daily life means growing hardship and limited access to basic services. Yet the executive has decided to pat itself on the back. Behind the rhetoric of “sovereignty” and “digitalisation,” these reforms struggle to hide the cracks in a state apparatus that appears to have lost its bearings.
A statistic detached from the ground
How can a government claim near-excellence when citizens face empty service windows, unbearable delays for birth certificates and other civil status documents, and endemic corruption in public procurement? The performance index promoted by the National Council for the Modernisation of Administration is a piece of bureaucratic rhetoric. This self-assessed rate reflects neither the real quality of services delivered nor the legitimate frustration of neglected rural populations.
Digital dreams, local nightmares
The executive has made the digitisation of procedures the hallmark of its action. But accelerating paperless services in a country plagued by recurring power cuts and weak internet coverage in the provinces is a leap into the unknown. Far from being inclusive, this blind transformation risks pushing millions of citizens out of the public service — people who lack both the necessary equipment and access to digital platforms.
Territorial redeployment: promises without means
It is essential to support the presence of armed forces with the return of public services. However, the announcement of an administration ready to immediately reinvest in recaptured areas looks more like a communication posture than an operational plan. Without solid security guarantees for state agents — teachers, health workers, administrators — and without an equipment budget equal to the challenges, sending civil servants to the front lines is reckless.
Bringing the civil service to heel
Finally, under the guise of building an “honest and disciplined” administration, the regime is in fact preparing the ground for greater politicisation of the senior civil service. The overhaul of appointment criteria and tighter control over public employees serve as a lever to sideline dissenting voices and silence trade unions.
A different path forward
Instead of multiplying seminars and statistical self-congratulation in Ouagadougou, the government would be better advised to tackle the root causes of state inefficiency: the lack of resources on the ground, the absence of real accountability, and the continuing deterioration of workers’ purchasing power.
