Burundi’s Court of Accounts presented its 2025–2026 annual general public report on Friday, August 14, 2026, offering a nuanced picture of how public funds are being managed across state institutions.
The full team of the institution responsible for overseeing public finances was present for the occasion. According to Court president Léopold Kabura, the assessment was mixed: some state entities are operating properly, while others show shortcomings, and a few are failing to comply with the law altogether. The bodies audited included ministries, institutions directly attached to them, and various public projects.
Beyond auditing these entities, the Court also carried out evaluation missions to check whether recommendations issued during previous audits, whether its own or those formulated by parliament, had actually been implemented. It further conducted a budget analysis covering the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 fiscal years, as well as the original and amended finance bills for 2025–2026, and the draft finance bill for 2026–2027.
Jérôme Ntunzwenimana, the Court’s rapporteur-adviser who presented the findings, explained that the observations fall into two categories: some are specific to individual audited entities or particular budget analysis reports, while others recur across multiple bodies.
One point of concern raised in the report involves the implementation of tax and customs exemptions, where overruns have reportedly already reached worrying levels according to the Court president, a topic that echoes previously expressed concerns about how the state manages its revenue.
Although the audit was carried out rigorously, its real impact remains to be seen. As the Court president himself acknowledged, the central question is no longer simply identifying shortcomings but verifying whether the recommendations issued to the institutions concerned translate into concrete action. This concern reflects a recurring challenge in public finance oversight: the effectiveness of an audit ultimately depends on the political will to correct the problems it uncovers.
The report’s publication comes against the broader backdrop of financial management reform in Burundi, which also saw a new generation of public accountants take their oath before the Court of Accounts this past April.