At cabinet meeting: MINFI boss hints 2024 state budget to witness slight increase.

This was through a presentation the member of government made at the Star Building yesterday. The presentation was on the preliminary draft Finance Law for 2024. 
It was presented for appraisal by other members of government during the cabinet meeting for the month of October, which the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute, chaired.
Minister Motaze, in the presentation, specified that the preliminary draft Finance Law was drawn up within the context of disturbing internal and external economic shocks.
The national and global shocks, Minister Motaze told other members of government, continue to impede smooth economic recovery efforts by government.
He said it is on the basis of this that the state budget for 2024 could witness a slight increase. 
Motaze, however, immediately cautioned his peers on the need to ensure budgetary discipline despite the projected slight increase of the state budget for 2024. 
“We will have a slight increase, but what I can say right now is that discipline will have to be applied by everybody. For the expenses, we will have to do the same thing. We have to be disciplined so as not to engage some expenses that are not important for the economy,” Motaze cautioned. 
For his part, the Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, MINEPAT, Alamine Ousmane Mey, said government will in 2024 focus its public investment on putting in place giant projects to improve the livelihoods of citizens. 
He mentioned the funding of the National Development Strategy, import substitution policy and the Presidential Plan for the Reconstruction and Development of the North West, South West and the Far North Regions, as key areas of focus. 
Generating the funds needed for the giant development projects, the official said, government intends to broaden the tax base and divert its attention from dependence on petroleum revenue. 
“When you see the prices of oil, from time to time, they go up and down. So, it will be very difficult if we rely only on oil revenue. This is why we think that revenues coming from the Taxation Department is more important than oil revenue,” Motaze explained. 
The preliminary draft budgetary policy for 2024, which was examined during the cabinet meeting yesterday, will likely undergo modifications.
It will finally be submitted to the Head of State, Paul Biya, for further orientation.
The cabinet meeting also examined the evolution of the health situation in the country. Public Health Minister, Dr Manaouda Malachie, noted that the country is in a period of calm, though diseases are still in circulation nationwide. 
“We have many cases which are reported as far as the COVID-19, measles yellow fever but we have nothing that can be of very serious preoccupation for us,” Dr Manaouda said, noting that the Prime Minister has instructed them to continue monitoring the situation.

Revisiting 2023 state budget
Worth recalling is the fact that the 2023 state budget initially stood at 6345.1 billion FCFA.  
The President of the Republic, Paul Biya, through an ordinance signed last June 2, amending the 2023 Finance Law, increased the 2023 state budget by an additional 381.8 billion FCFA. This therefore put the overall 2023 state budget at 6726.9 billion FCFA.
The increase by the Head of State principally reinforced reconstruction and development of parts of the country devastated by conflicts, especially the North West, South West and Far North Regions.
Apart from boosting reconstruction efforts, the increase was also meant to ease repayment of public debts, up support for households as well as caution economic shocks caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, COVID-19 pandemic and fluctuating oil prices.