Introduction
« Whoever controls the budget controls the State »: this old maxim captures the fundamental stake of any organic law on finance laws. In Benin, the organic budget law (LOLF) is the superior norm organizing the preparation, adoption, execution and control of the State budget.
Benin's financial constitutional history unfolds in two distinct stages: first the 1986 LOLF, a founding but ideologically outdated text; then the 2013 LOLF, which marks a break by transposing the WAEMU directives and substituting a results-based logic for a means-based one.
Ten years after this reform, a paradox is striking: satisfactory macroeconomic indicators coexist with an implementation of budgetary performance that remains largely declaratory. This paradox motivates the present analysis.
From the 1986 LOLF to that of 2013: ideological break and normative modernization
The 1986 LOLF
Adopted on 26 September 1986 by the Revolutionary National Assembly under a Marxist-Leninist regime, this first LOLF filled a major legal void. The previous financial legislation was scattered and partly based on a colonial text dating from 1912. It introduced budgetary discipline where financial orthodoxy had been compromised.
However, this law carried its own limits. It referenced dissolved institutions (the Revolutionary National Assembly, the Standing Committee, the People's Revolutionary Party) and contained provisions rendered obsolete by the return to multiparty politics and the adoption of the Constitution of 11 December 1990.
More fundamentally, it was rooted in a means-based budget logic incompatible with modern requirements of accountability and performance-based management.
The 2013 LOLF
Organic Law No. 2013-14 of 27 September 2013 constitutes a major normative break. It transposes the directives of the WAEMU harmonized framework, notably Directive No. 06/2009 on finance laws.
Three major institutional innovations characterize this reform:
First, the shift from a means-based to a results-based logic. The budget by chapter gives way to a budget by programmes. Each programme becomes the unit of budgetary vote and execution, structured around measurable objectives and performance indicators.
Second, the introduction of multi-year programming tools: the Multi-Year Budgetary and Economic Programming Document (DPBEP), the Multi-Year Expenditure Programming Document (DPPD), the Annual Performance Projects (PAP) and the Annual Performance Reports (RAP). These instruments anchor public management in a medium-term perspective and allow systematic evaluation of public policies.
Third, the strengthening of the parliamentary role in budgetary control and the enrichment of government transparency and information obligations.
The blind spots and fundamental limits of the reform
The approach here is not a prosecution-style critique but an analysis aimed at identifying imperfections with a view to a future update of the text.
The legal force of the programme budget
Programme budgets remain mere working documents for administrations and explanatory annexes for parliamentarians. They have no enforceable legal value.
This is a major shortcoming. Although the LOLF establishes the programme as the fundamental unit of management, the lack of legal enforceability means that managers risk no sanction for failing to meet objectives and receive no reward for exceeding them. The reform transformed the vocabulary without changing the substance.
Citizen participation
A public finance reform without citizen involvement remains incomplete. The standard analysis of Benin's LOLF does not address citizen participation in the budget process. A modern LOLF implies a civil society capable of reading the budget, questioning it and demanding accountability.
Yet participatory budgeting, a mechanism allowing citizens to contribute directly to defining spending priorities, is almost non-existent in Benin, at both central and local levels.
The effectiveness of the chain of responsibility
The LOLF introduced a hierarchical breakdown into programmes, actions and activities, reproducing international best practice.
In Beninese practice, the designation of Action and Activity Managers suffers from ambiguity: criteria are not uniform across ministries. Beyond designations, the challenge of their effective functioning remains.
Clarifying the perimeters of responsibility between the programmatic chain (Programme Manager, Action Manager, Activity Manager) and the classic administrative chain (Minister, Secretary General, Directors) requires intelligible arbitration.
Conclusion
Benin's 2013 LOLF is an ambitious and necessary reform. It transformed the vocabulary of public management, introduced multi-year programming tools and enabled Benin to align itself with best practice in the WAEMU zone. These gains are real and significant.
However, critical analysis reveals a persistent gap between the ambition of the text and the reality of its application. Programme budgets without legal force, the absence of citizen participation, the effective functioning of the programmatic chain: so many worksites remain open.