Jean Baptiste Ondaye has been Minister of the Economy and Finance since September 24, 2022. This economist by training had been Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic since 2009. He is now tasked with guiding public policies towards a strong, diversified, and resilient economy for inclusive growth.
Born on January 15, 1958 in Makoua, holder of a higher economic studies diploma, option national economic planning, obtained in 1983 at the Berlin School of Economics in Germany, Jean-Baptiste Ondaye joined the Ministry of Planning a year later where he had a rich career until 2008 occupying several positions.
Head of the investment and licensing department, in charge of the National Investment Commission, he was appointed seven years later, in 1991, Director of Economic Regulation, concurrently with his duties as Permanent Secretary of the National Investment Commission until 1997. The same year, he was promoted to the position of Director General of the Economy, member of the Steering Committee of the Central African Customs and Economic Union.
In 1999, Jean-Baptiste Ondaye took over as head of the Directorate General for Planning and Development. For ten years, he held this position concurrently with the functions of technical secretary of the National Committee for the Fight Against Poverty, member of the Monitoring Committee for negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, alternate member of the Inter-State Committee of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa and technical coordinator of programs with agencies of the United Nations system.
He joined the President's inner circle in 2009 as Secretary General of the Presidency, with the rank and prerogatives of a minister. This confidence was renewed in 2016 by President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who retained him in this position with a new responsibility: to preside over the Committee for Monitoring and Evaluating Public Policies and Programs and the National Ad Hoc Committee for Combating Malnutrition.
This economist by training, specializing in planning issues, faces several challenges at the head of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Among the main issues are the mobilization of resources for the implementation of the National Development Plan (NDP) 2022-2026 and the optimal functioning of the State; the acceleration of the diversification of the national economy; debt reduction and the sustainability of the State's debt; the execution of the program concluded with international financial institutions under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) 2022-2024; the implementation of the Resilience Plan for the 2022-2023 food crisis; and the challenge of streamlining economic and financial governance.
Its action involves a number of priority actions, including strengthening economic diversification, growth and resilience to shocks, accelerating the digitization of tax and customs revenue collection, dematerializing public procurement, and setting up forecasting and management tools for state cash flow and budgetary risks.
For the Minister of Economy and Finance, the goal is to achieve economic and financial performance by 2026 for modern governance of public finances in Congo, thereby promoting stronger, more sustainable and more inclusive economic growth.