In Burkina Faso, the transitional government’s announcement of an 85.38 percent administrative performance score for 2025 lands hard on a population already squeezed by rising poverty and shrinking access to basic services. For ordinary citizens and small businesses, the number does not translate into shorter queues, faster paperwork or honest dealings at public offices. It translates into another year of waiting, paying and improvising around a state apparatus that many say has lost its way. The gap between the official narrative of sovereignty and digital modernisation on one side, and the daily grind at Burkina Faso’s administrative counters on the other, is not abstract. It has a cost, and that cost is borne by the people.
What the 85.38 percent score means for ordinary Burkinabè
How can an efficiency rate close to excellence be claimed when users routinely find empty service windows, endure intolerable delays to obtain civil status documents and confront entrenched corruption in public procurement? The performance index highlighted by the national council for the modernisation of the administration reads more like bureaucratic rhetoric than a measure of reality. This self-assessed figure captures neither the actual quality of service delivered nor the legitimate frustration of rural communities left behind. For a family in a remote province trying to register a birth or secure a land title, the score is meaningless. What matters is the lost day of work, the unofficial fee demanded at the counter, and the repeated trips that drain household budgets already stretched thin.
The digitalisation promise and its blind spots
The executive has made the digitisation of procedures the flagship of its agenda. But pushing ahead with dematerialisation in a country plagued by recurrent power cuts and weak internet coverage across the provinces is a headlong rush. Far from being inclusive, this blind transformation risks pushing millions of citizens out of the public service entirely, particularly those without the necessary equipment or access to digital platforms. For small traders and rural entrepreneurs, the shift online can mean the difference between registering a business and giving up altogether, feeding an informal economy that the state struggles to bring into the fold.
Reclaiming territory: promises without the means to deliver
It is essential to accompany the presence of armed forces with the return of public services. Yet the announcement of an administration ready to immediately redeploy to reconquered areas looks more like a communication posture than an operational plan. Without solid security guarantees for state agents such as teachers, health workers and administrators, and without an equipment budget matching the stakes, sending civil servants to the front line amounts to recklessness. The consequences are tangible: schools that reopen without staff, clinics that operate without supplies, and communities that regain a flag but not a functioning state.
A public service being brought to heel
Finally, under the guise of building an administration that is upright and disciplined, 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 levers to sideline dissenting voices and silence trade unions. For workers, this means less protection, fewer avenues for redress and a workplace where loyalty to the ruling line matters more than competence. The ripple effects reach every sector, from education to health, where morale and retention were already fragile.
The real bill for the economy and for households
Rather than 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 genuine accountability and the continued erosion of workers’ purchasing power. Until those issues are addressed, the 85.38 percent score will remain a headline number with a hidden invoice, paid in lost time, lost income and lost trust by the very citizens the administration claims to serve.
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