Burundi will require property owners along roads chosen for paving to contribute toward construction costs, a plan that adds a new direct charge on households even as the government collects two other road-related levies whose actual revenue has rarely been disclosed in recent years.
Infrastructure, Equipment and Transport Minister Egide Nijimbere announced the property-contribution plan Tuesday. Owners of houses and plots along the selected roads must pay 61,773 Burundian francs per square meter, calculated using three meters of the property’s frontage.
“Each neighborhood will have a committee, and each road will also be equipped with its own committee,” Nijimbere said. “A bank account will be opened at the neighborhood level, along with a sub-account intended to collect contributions from the residents of a given road’s neighborhood, with each person paying according to the calculations corresponding to their plot.”
Under the formula, the contribution is calculated by multiplying a property’s frontage by three meters and then by 61,773 BIF. A 10-meter frontage would owe 1,853,190 BIF; a 20-meter frontage, 3,706,380 BIF; a 50-meter frontage, 9,265,950 BIF; and a 100-meter frontage, 18,531,900 BIF. The same formula applies to the property owner facing the road from the opposite side.
Nijimbere said the 61,773-BIF-per-square-meter charge represents the citizens’ share of the cost. The state will cover the rest by providing machinery and, where necessary, building bridges and culverts, he said.
According to Nijimbere, the program covers 42 communes, with each selected avenue expected to run at least 300 meters. Prime Minister Nestor Ntahontuye outlined the broader approach at a meeting in Gitega on Sept. 24, saying communities would fund neighborhood paving while the state supports work requiring heavier resources.
According to Nijimbere, three people designated on each avenue will monitor use of the funds, and work will begin once an avenue’s account reaches an amount considered sufficient to pave 300 meters. The government has also urged communities to use local materials, such as sand, stone and gravel, to help hold down costs.
Officials have not said whether the avenue accounts will be independently audited, how often financial statements will be shared with contributors, who will appoint the three monitors, or how disputes over unpaid contributions will be resolved. It is also unclear what happens to money left over once an avenue is finished, or when contributions fall short of what is needed to begin.
Two other levies, little public accounting
The new charge comes as Burundi collects road-related revenue through two other mechanisms, both introduced after the government scrapped an earlier system.
From 2021 to 2024, vehicle owners paid an annual road fee, the redevance annuelle routière. In its first year, the fee brought in far more than expected: the 2021-2022 budget projected 2 billion BIF, but the Finance Ministry’s execution report shows 7,274,328,544 BIF was actually collected, more than triple the forecast. The budgeted amount rose to 9.81 billion BIF for 2022-2023 and 9.23 billion BIF for 2023-2024, according to Court of Auditors and Senate budget records. Neither year’s actual collections were reported separately; both were folded into a broader administrative-fees category.
The 2024-2025 budget eliminated that annual fee and replaced it with a charge built into fuel prices. A 75-BIF-per-liter redevance routière et environnementale took effect July 1, 2024, which the Finance Ministry projected would generate about 17 billion BIF in its first year. As with the fee before it, no public execution report shows the actual amount collected.
The 2025-2026 budget kept the per-liter fuel charge and added a second, separate levy: an annual flat environmental fee paid directly by vehicle owners. The Burundi Revenue Authority said in a Feb. 24 notice that the fee ranging from 10,000 BIF for motorcycles to 1.5 million BIF for vehicles over 9,000 kilograms was due by March 31, 2026. Transport industry representatives have objected publicly, calling it double taxation since the fuel-based charge remains in place.
For the current 2026-2027 fiscal year, the two levies are budgeted to bring in a combined 25.35 billion BIF, about 8.98 billion BIF from the fuel charge and about 16.37 billion BIF from the flat annual fee. Because the fiscal year is still underway, those are projections, not confirmed collections.
The government has not said whether revenue from either levy is earmarked for the new neighborhood paving program.
Additional cost for property owners
A 10-meter property frontage would cost the owner more than 1.85 million BIF under the new plan; a 50-meter frontage would cost more than 9.26 million BIF. The calculation is based on frontage rather than total property size.
Nijimbere said the approach is meant to speed up road construction using local resources rather than waiting for larger, centrally financed projects.
