The President of the Republic Announces the Implementation of a Comprehensive Economic Program on own Funds for a Global Envelope of more than MRO 240 Billion
Nouakchott, 2 September 2020 (AMI) – In an address to the nation on 2 September, the President of the Republic, Mr. Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazwani, said that the living forces: political parties, organizations of civil society and press organs must play their role in terms of monitoring, control and evaluation, to anchor institutional rules and good governance.
He also announced the launch of a comprehensive economic program on own funds for a global envelope of more than 240 billion old Ouguiyas, without prejudice to the conduct of ongoing projects in various fields.
Here is the full text of the President’s speech:
“Dear Citizens,
To satisfy the electoral contract on the basis of which we won your trust, we have made great efforts over the past period to materialize the contents and objectives of our general policy at different levels.
The volume of ongoing projects and programs, which aim to combat exclusion and precariousness, facilitate access for all Mauritanians to basic services, and develop health and education services confirms this orientation which is also reflected in concrete steps to anchor national unity, strengthen social cohesion, appease political life, and build the rule of law and freedoms, as well as good governance.
The implementation of these various programs is underway at a satisfactory pace, but the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic since the beginning of the current year and the serious damage it has caused at both the national and international levels, have given rise to new complex economic and social realities with serious dangers.
This pandemic has had negative consequences on our national economy, leading to a decline in our Gross National Product, as well as a drastic reduction in our tax revenues and an increase in our expenses, which has worsened the budget deficit.
In addition, this pandemic revealed a structural weakness in our economic system. This situation highlighted the importance of strengthening the role of the State in the regulation of the economy, the orientation of investment, the development of the productive sector and the implementation of a sustained action to achieve the highest possible level of food self-sufficiency.
In order to overcome these negative effects and meet the challenges and constraints of the post-COVID-19 era, it was decided to launch a comprehensive economic program on own funds for a global envelope of more than 240 billion old Ouguiyas, without prejudice to the conduct of ongoing projects in various fields. The new program, which is autonomous and will be implemented over 30 months, aims to achieve the conditions necessary for the recovery of the economy following a comprehensive participatory approach that assigns to the private sector a dynamic economic role, and works on the creation of more jobs and the judicious use of our natural resources in the fields of agriculture, livestock and fishing.
This program will help foster cohesion between our economic system and the vision on which our general policy is based. It will also promote the cohesion of this system with the strategy of accelerated development and shared prosperity as it will make our economic system more respectful of the environment because it will focus better on the acceleration of the sustainable development goals defined in the 2030 agenda.
The implementation of this program will be an opportunity to achieve a profound structural change within our economic system. This change is expected to be gradually put in place through an increase in public investment, particularly in priority productive sectors and also through the creation of a strategic investment fund and the integration of economic activities, as well as through the simplification of administrative procedures, the improvement of the business climate and the establishment of institutional rules for strong and effective governance.
This program is based on fundamental axes, the main ones of which are:
1- Strengthening infrastructure supporting development
2- Building capacity of social sectors and support to demand
3- Promoting support to the productive sectors to achieve food self-sufficiency
4- Strengthening the formal and informal private sector
5- Fighting desertification, drought and supporting employment.
Dear citizens,
The implementation of this economic program requires all of us to give great interest to the successful implementation of its components. To this end, the government will put in place monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure its implementation under the best conditions while rigorously respecting the rules of transparency, morality, and responsibility.
Good governance is a necessary condition for the execution of economic projects to ensure the achievement of the objectives set for them. For this we have instructed the government through our engagement letter to the Prime Minister insisting on the absolute sovereignty of the law, transparency in the management of public resources and rigor in the treatment of all forms of administrative or financial embezzlement.
Dear citizens,
The success of major economic programs does not only depend on the performance of the official institutions responsible for implementing projects on the ground, but rather requires the participation of the citizen, who is the primary beneficiary of this program.
For this, all our living forces, political parties, non-governmental organizations, and the media, must fully play their role in terms of control and monitoring to ensure compliance with the rules of strong and effective good governance.
Thank you”.