To further stimulate growth: Gov't begins in-depth review of projects in 2025 CIEP session.

According to the Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motaze, who opened the session on May 26, government is determined to make sure that the next three years of State budgeting effectively reinvigorate the economy as the drive towards achieving the objectives of the strategic document for national development, SND30, gather steam.

The CIEP deliberations will remain in conclave till June 9, when actors will rise to hand down to Cameroonians a new blueprint, (cartography) of State programmes for the next three years. 

For the Minister of Finance, budgeting and budget execution for the coming three years will no longer be business as usual.

He said government has realised that money budgeted to some State agencies never gets consumed year in year out. He regretted that such agencies continue getting the same allocation in the State budget. 

This, he noted, is going to change in the coming three years, as the CIEP is determined to highlight that as a key recommendation.

Motaze also made allusion to the fact that overall performance of programmes remains worrying, as prevailing complexities run the risk of undermining overall government effort.

He noted that follow up guidelines are rarely followed to the letter by decision-makers; just as active participation of officers responsible for the supervision of programmes, both at the budget preparatory stage and actual execution state remain limited or minimal.

Even as he highlighted that coherence in role play and performance of officials in different ministerial departments remain imperfect, he stated that the committee had seen cases where some agencies carry out all the projects assigned to them by consuming barely half or less of their actual financial allocation. 

Weak collaboration, both inter and intra sectors, the minister said, remains a major obstacle to realising the objectives of SND30.

He reminded committee members that the SND30 remains the major guideline and reference for officials as they strive to attain the national development objectives enshrined in the strategic development document.

Five years to the end of SND30, Minister Motaze said there were many programmes that are lagging behind. 

He noted that infrastructure projects that can make Cameroon stand competition with other nations are wanting; industries and services that can make Cameroon an accumulator, feeder and provider of equipment in the central African economic and monetary community, and by extension, Nigeria, are short in coming. 

“A productive rural sector capable of engendering durable growth so that the rural sector contributes effectively to building national wealth and improve the living conditions of the population is ever short in coming,” Motaze stated.

He also harped on the need to put in place an educational system that sends out graduates who are sociologically integrated, bilingual, competent in one area or the other, so that they can contribute their quota to national development. 

On health, Minister Motaze urged members to aim at putting in place a universal healthcare system; social security assurance, and an inclusive government, transparent and efficient as the country moves towards emergence. 

Enter Directorate General of the Budget

According to the Director General of the Budget in the Ministry of Finance, Cyril Edou, the 10-day conclave will examine the extent to which benchmarks on execution of development projects were attained or not.

He said they will examine which programmes will remain relevant in the coming three years, so that they could be retained in the new cartography. Those that are obsolete, he stated, would be expunged, while new programmes that are supposed to see the light of day in the coming years would be inserted into the cartography.

Programmes will be evaluated in terms of their relevance to attaining the objectives of the national strategic development document, in the different sectors – Public health, education, infrastructure development, agriculture, among others.

At the end of the 10 days, Edou said members of the CIEP hope to come out with a new cartographic guide, with special attention given to line ministries so that budget execution within the next three years, creates positive impact in improving the living standards of Cameroonians.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3458 of Wednesday May 28, 2025