Tresor Pay digital platform: MINFI boss kick-starts nationwide sensitisation in West Region.

Minister Motaze launched the sensitisation campaign in Bangou, Upper Plateau Division, of the West Region. It brought together all public finance stakeholders in the Division.

In the face of dwindling government revenue, Minister Motaze said the Tresor Pay digital platform will curb various losses in revenue collection as well as combat user abuse.

While saluting government’s partners, including the World Bank, Minister Motaze said their involvement “is a guarantee of the success of the project to digitise public financial transactions”. 

“I am thinking in particular of credit institutions, microfinance institutions, mobile payment operators and public administrations involved in financial operations, he said.

Protecting gov’t from cash flow pressures

Given the rate of loss of public resources from non-tax services, Minister Motaze said the state wants to ensure that it has the room to maneuvre its need to protect itself from cash flow pressures.

He said by securing non-tax financial flows, the new digital system guarantees attainment of government’s objective.

“In recent years, the Bank of Central African States, BEAC, the joint issuing institution for the six CEMAC countries, set the course for the dematerialisation of financial transactions, through two important sub-regional texts. These are respectively (i) Regulation N°01/11/CEMACIUMAC of September 18, 2011 relating to the exercise of the activity of issuing electronic money, which defines the status and obligations of establishments authorised to exercise the activity of issuing electronic money,” he said.

“Another is the payment services in the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, of December 21, 2018, which defines payment services, the status of entities authorised to operate in this field, their mandate, the legal basis of the electronic accounting document and the principle of electronic archiving of accounting documents arising from electronic transactions,” he added.

Minister Motaze continued that: “The internalisation of these community instruments in our national legal system was materialised by the signature of the aforementioned decree n°2022/8001/CABIPM of September 16, 2022, which since that date has given legal force to financial operations, carried out electronically by public administrations in our country”.

Talking on the platform, Minister Motaze said: “The advent of this important tool could give rise to apprehension and mistrust on the part of some players, which we hope to dispel by multiplying opportunities for meeting and sharing”.

“As a number of private and public players are involved in the collection of resources and the settlement of public expenditure, often outside the scope of the legal and regulatory provisions in force, they will need to be reminded of the constraints involved in carrying out this activity,” he noted.

He thus stated that the sensitisation campaign is an opportunity to share with all stakeholders the direction taken by the Ministry of Finance, to make Tresor Pay the interoperability portal for all public entity financial transactions.

“As such, the treasury's user-customers will have to use it to carry out and monitor their financial transactions, with its interconnection with the Treasury's Single Account ensured in real time. These developments…sufficiently highlight the major project to modernise treasury services, with the aim of making it a digital administration in an increasingly digital world,” the Minister disclosed.

Fine-tuning revenue collection, payment systems

The World Bank and other partners have assisted the government to put in place appropriate database. The Tresor Pay platform is coming to add to government’s efforts in trying to fine-tune the revenue collection and payment systems to reduce loss of revenue and better secure same.

With Tresor Pay digital platform, the general public can, by operating from home, select the type of recipe to be paid, do their transaction and print out receipts.

In practical terms, Minister Motaze said the payer needs to access the platform via the website address and follow the configuration diagram displayed there.

The government, through the Minister of Finance, is using the platform to fully assume its role of instituting transparent management of public finds, ensuring neutrality on the part of both the revenue receiver and player, interoperation harmony of public actors, among other benefits.

The innovation, experts say, will boost overall revenue collection, especially with the adoption of the single Treasury Account that is in place since September 2022.

As collaborators in field offices are charged with the collection of all revenues earmarked in every state budget, Minister Motaze said it is important to take the sensitisation and presentation of the new platform to them. 

The sensitisation caravan that was in Bangou yesterday, today proceeds to Bandjoun, still in the West Region.