• A treasury weighed down by the State
• Towards the truth of prices?
• The Dilemma of Transition
The chaos caused by the possible shortage of fuel in the city of Ouagadougou, the country’s largest consumption center with more than 3 million liters per day, has left indelible images in the memory of users of gas stations. The city of Ouaga was running practically in slow motion. Can the events of the end of 2022 be repeated in 2023? If this were the case, it would reflect the authorities’ inability to find a radical solution to Sonabhy’s problems. They are not new and the solutions applied so far are of the cyclical type. In 2014, when celebrating the Company’s thirtieth anniversary, L’Economiste du Faso wrote regarding the company’s financial situation: “Its cash is at -111 billion FCFA. The Company is obliged to go into debt to maintain the bet of the regular supply of the country, with enormous financial costs. The situation might have been better if Sonabel were less of a bad payer and if the reimbursement of capital losses was done diligently by the State, which subsidizes gas, Ddo and fuel oil. For the former Managing Director, Gambetta Aboubakar Nacro, apart from this cash flow problem, the Company is doing well, it is even profitable. He believes that the current cash flow difficulties are cyclical and hopes that things will get back to normal, in order to clean up the company’s finances. »
The question remains open, since almost 10 years later, on January 11, 2023, the Council instructed the ministers in charge of the file “to propose a plan which will make it possible to break with the trend of continuous deterioration of the situation of SONABHY, to better secure Burkina Faso’s supplies of hydrocarbons”. The State owes SONABHY “489.69 billion FCFA, forcing it to incur debt with local and international financial institutions. The Company’s debt with its suppliers amounts to CFAF 149.81 billion. »
The National Hydrocarbons faces two challenges: its low cash flow to acquire more and more fuel in the face of a continuously growing demand and the strengthening of its storage capacities. Challenges accentuated by an international environment marked by the war in Ukraine and the general surge in prices, including that of the barrel of oil. The current subsidized pricing mechanism reached its limits this year. The State does not normally reimburse the subsidy on the basis that it is a State Company and that it can guarantee certain loans of the Company. The problem, by dint of drawing on its own resources and going into debt to supply the country, the Company is almost at end of the roll. And its financial partners, who have always believed in its model, are beginning to doubt its signature, in particular its main suppliers who demand cash.
The first alert on Sonabhy’s solvency came from a daily economy, “Africa Intelligence”, in October 2022. This newspaper alerted on unpaid 400 billion FCFA with its suppliers who threatened to turn off the tap. A case that dated back to the Kaboré regime, inherited by the MPSR which was trying somehow to manage the situation, when the second coup d’etat took place, and the drivers’ strike, relating to the diversion of fuel modestly called “missing”. . This strike revealed the importance of drivers in the supply system, and especially their impact on waste. Their movement allowed the new device for measuring shrinkage to be put on hold, thus maintaining a status quo that is not necessarily favorable to Sonabhy, who suffers the losses.
This small movement of just a few days has hurt stocks of the Sonabhy. This one had therefore begun to ration the distributors by providing only 60% of the requested volume. This technique should make it possible to gradually replenish stocks. But its disclosure to the general public caused panic and a rush at gas stations, resulting in a de facto shortage.
We can put the situation thus created on the back of poor communication, but the succession of events, in 2022, it must be recognized, was not to reassure the Burkinabè.
The government of transition is called upon to do a little more than the previous ones, if it wants to maintain the balance and secure the country’s supply in this period of war. There are not 36 solutions. Either he applies the truth of the prices, or he regularly pays what he owes to Sonabhy. The first will be unpopular. Is the second sustainable for public finances, at the risk of shooting itself in the foot?
FW
framed
Get out of the vicious circle
A
When the fuel shortage was in full swing, the Burkinabè Treasury was maneuvering on the regional financial market to mobilize 150 billion, with Coris Bourse as leader of the mobilization. At the end, 173 billion FCFA were retained. This sum, according to our information, was to finance government development programs, but also to oxygenate Sonabhy. Another mechanism of the State consisted in securitizing its debt vis-à-vis Sonabhy, with banking and financial institutions once morest liquidity. This technique in this period of political instability and political slowdown does not seem very promising.o
