5 PUBLIC SPENDING IN FAVOUR OF THE FORESTRY SECTOR

The administration and management of forestry resources are entrusted to the Ministry for the Environment, Water, Forests, Hunting and Fisheries. For the financing of action in the development of the sector, organisations were set up under the auspices of the Ministry. At the outset, towards the end of the 1960s, three offices came into being. They were:

• The National Forestry Office (NFO);

• The National Centre for the Protection and Development of the Fauna (NCPDF); and

• The Central African Republic Tourism Office (CARTO).

The organisations were dissolved in July 1993 to be replaced the same year by another one for financing activities, which was the Fund for Forestry and Tourism Development (FFTD). This public establishment endowed with legal powers and financial autonomy was created by order number 93-0111 of 8 July 1993. It had the mission of financing the Development Programme for the Forestry, Fauna and Tourism sectors and to ensure the follow up and monitoring of the carrying out of these actions.

The net assets as well as the other resources of the organisations mentioned above (ONF, NCPDF, and CARTO) are allocated to the FFTD. These statutes were approved by decree taken by the Cabinet.

The FFTD was dissolved by the January 1999 finance law and was redirected a year later under the form of a Special Allocation Account – Forestry and Tourism Development (SAA-FTD). The 2000-finance law which created the Special Allocation Account of the Public Revenue Department specifies that the operations on these accounts are planned, authorised and carried out in the same conditions as those operations for the general budget. The total amount of spending pledged or ordered for these accounts at no time can exceed the total amount of revenue in those accounts.

Still according to the 2000 finance law, revenue from this account is made up of:

• Taxes and dues from forestry, hunting and tourism;

• Subsidies, donations, legacies and aid;

• Borrowings:

• Seized products;

• Products from services rendered.

Authorised expenditure on this account is the following:

• The carrying out by law or in business of equipment work programmes;

• Operating expenditure, fuel, material and supplies from the special account;

• National payments to international forestry and tourism organisations; and

• National counterparts for the financing of projects.

The distribution of spending between these four posts is set annually by joint decree from the Minister for Finance, the Minister for the Environment, Water, Forestry, Hunting and Fisheries and from the Minister for Tourism. The clauses concerning the operation and current management of the account are set by order from the Minister for Finance.

The FFTD being the main public forestry institution, the summary of its budget for the year 2000 is the following:

Table 9 Summary of FFTD budget for year 2000

The information in this table comes from FFTD book-keeping. These amounts are those actually collected during 2000. The differences with the data in Table 5 come from the fact that it is the end of the tax year. Certain invoices for revenue issued in the name of the FFTD by the Forestry Office have not yet been paid by the companies due to pay them. This reflects the problem of tax collection evoked in Section 3.2. Table 11 gives details of spending of activities for 2000. Table 10 reiterates the total revenue as well as spending in favour of the forestry development for the past five years.

Table 10 Total revenue and spending in favour of forestry development 1996-2000 (in thousands of FCFA)

Table 11 Details of spending on activities for year 2000

As it was mentioned for Table 9, data for Table 10 comes from the FFTD accounting and the difference with data in Table 5, comes once again, with the delay in collecting the invoices for revenue.

It should be pointed out that the central State budget through the intermediary of the Public Revenue Department finances the operations of the Ministry for the Environment, Water, Forestry, Hunting and Fisheries and the institutions for forestry training which are:

• The programme for forestry engineers and higher technicians in Water and Forestry at the Higher Institute for Rural Development (HIRD) at the University of Bangui; and

• The programme for technicians in Water and Forestry at the Rural Development Technical College (RDTC) in Grimari.

It should also be noted that as well as students choosing the water and forestry option, these establishments also train students of other disciplines such as agriculture and livestock breeding.

The table to follow presents the summary of this expenditure from the Public Revenue Department for the Ministry for the Environment, Water, Forestry, Hunting and Fisheries and the two training establishments for the past five years.

Table 12 Spending from the Public Revenue Department for the operations of the two training establishments and the Ministry responsible for forestry (in thousands of FCFA)

Source: Finance law

In the area of investment, the forestry sector was subject to continuous government attention as the importance of projects carried out in the different areas demonstrates. In the area of forestry:

• The «Application of Research to the valuing of Forestry Resources (ARFR)» project. It operated from 1978 until 1985 and intervened in the areas of forest and the savannah.

• The Programme of Preparation of Forestry Projects (PFP). In 1982, the Central African Republic’s government obtained from the World Bank the backing for the realisation of the study of the forestry sector which then gave rise to several studies aiming to know, manage and protect natural resources, a study financed by the Agency for International Development (AID); a study carried out with the support for maintaining and developing the forestry industry, the production of a dendrology manual to know better the forest species, the taking of aerial photographs of forestry areas and cartography of forestry formations in the Central African Republic.

• The Project for the Management of Natural Resources (PMNR) was the most important forestry project financed by the World Bank at a cost of 26 million US dollars. This project had four aspects: a forestry inventory, agri-forestry, support for the management of reserves and national parks, and the restoration and reinforcement of the Ministry.

• The conservation and rational use of ecosystems in Central Africa, which is a sub-regional project financed by the European Union.

• The Project for Conservation and Rational Management of dense forests in Bangassou financed by several sponsors.

• The Programme for Participative Management of Natural Resources (PPMNR) financed by German Technical Co-operation (GTC).

• The Regional Management Programme and Environmental Information (RMPEI).

• The support project for the realisation of forestry development plans financed by the French Development Agency.

• The Development Project of the Salo forest financed by the French Development Fund (FDF).

The following table regroups the public investment in favour of the forestry sector from 1992-1997.

Table 13 Public investment in the forest sub-sector 1992-1997 (in millions of FCFA)

Source: Reports of realisation of State investment (Ministere for the Economy, Ministry for Planning and Ministry for International Co-operation, 1992-1997).

Table 12 presents the spending carried out, foreseen in the State budget for the years 1996 – 2000 in favour of public forestry institutions (training establishments and the ministry responsible for forestry). The spending was done with revenue from several State sources (the Public Revenue Department). With regard to Table 13, it presents the amount of investment carried out by the State in the area of forestry (the projects) based on borrowings and foreign subsidies.