Public Finance Dialogue Platform adopts three-year work plan.

It was presided by the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Finance, Yaouba Abdoulaye. The plan for the next three years has eight main focal axes. 

The first, described as AXE 1 and the second, AXE 2, officials said, will be dedicated to increase attention to how resources for the state budget are mobilized every year and how the funds are disbursed alongside priority sectors.

 AXE 3, it was said, will involve engaging members of the committee to monitor step by step execution of every budget. 

For the AXE 4, officials disclosed that it will concern how the government manages risk from the process of executing yearly state budgets.

AXE 5, it was announced at yesterday’s meeting, will involve how state contract awards are managed; while AXE 6 will pay attention to how government revenues are receipted and accounted for. 

The same will look at internal and external checks on revenue receipts; as well as on internal audit control and auditing of public accounts by external auditors.

On AXE 7 experts said, focus will be how government is incorporating climate change into annual budgets so as to improve resilience of communities for the overall growth of the economy. 

They furthered that it will equally look how government is exhibiting gender and minority sensitivity to ensure their inclusion in annual budgets alongside how public finance allocation pays attention to gender inclusion.

According to officials, the next three-year period will see members of the committee scrutinizing government on how it is expanding the digitalization of state procedures and services.

The objectives, they said, will be to complete digitalization of public services, especially in terms of payments and receipt of revenues as soon as it is reasonably possible.

Within the next three years, the committee said interventions would have been carried out in the nine AXEs; with 110 decisive measures taken; while 263 results are expected to be attained.

Also, by the end of this working period in 2027, committee members said they hope to have put in place more than 20 structures to work towards attaining perfect transparency in public finance management.

  Philippe Lafosse: Charge d'affaires at UN Systems

Gov´t, funding & technical partners in symbiotic relationship

For the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Finance, Yauba Abdoulaye, development partners were satisfied with the way the government implemented reforms during the 2019-2023 period.

He acknowledged that funding and technical partners were particularly impressed with the strategy government put in place, through the Ministry of Finance, to ensure that debt management.

Abdoulaye equally said partners were satisfied with the overall revenue allocation focus on critical sectors that encourage economic growth, in an improved climate of transparency.

The Minister Delegate assured development partners that government had taken note of the concerns raised as far as public spending and accounting for revenues received are concerned. 

Philippe Lafosse, Charge d´Affairs at the office of the Resident Coordinator of UN Systems in Cameroon represented the Resident Coordinator, and spoke on behalf of technical and development partners.

Lafosse said they were relatively satisfied with the collaboration with government and funding bodies like the International Monetary Fund, IMF; the World Bank; the German Cooperation Mission; the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP; and the French Development Agency, AFD, implementing partners of the Debt Relief and Development Contract, C2D.

The UN Systems Charge d´Affairs, commended the Minister of Finance for giving everyone the opportunity to air their views. He expressed optimism that the performance of the committee will improve.

The Chief of Division for Budgetary Reforms in the Ministry of Finance, Boumsong Sophie, assured that everything has been put in place for the plan to work.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3248 of Thursday October 03, 2024