For proper management of public finances: MINFI trains regional, local decentralisation stakeholders from NW, SW.

It brought together authorising officers of both local and regional councils from the North West and the South West Regions, their financial controllers, accounting officers and other collaborators. 

MINFI officials said the awareness-raising caravan is to enable participants understand the updates and align them with the accounting reforms for the proper management of the resources.

Aligning local and regional authorities with the accounting reform, through the implementation of local finance reform, they said, is in line with recent changes made to accelerate the decentralisation process, with the introduction of local taxation and the transfer of competencies.

Participants were also trained on the legal framework for local finance reform, budgetary reform of local and regional authorities, the accounting reform and the optimization of the regional and local authorities’ information system.

Participants also gained expertise knowledge on the new provisions in Book V of Law No. 2019/024/PM of 24 December 2019 establishing the General Code of Regional and Local Authorities, which encourages them to adopt programme-based budgeting as the sole tool for budget preparation, execution, and reporting. 

MINFI officials said the goal is for all 384 Regional and Local Authorities to transition to the budgeting approach in the future.

Opening the workshop, the Secretary General at the South West Governor’s Office, Gilbert Acha Nkwenti, encouraged participants to pay keen attention to lessons and exchanges.

As frontline officials in the decentralisation process, Acha challenged participants to implement the lessons learnt and ensure the put into practice the new reforms in their budgeting, execution and reporting of projects within their areas of competence.

Acha reminded participants that decentralization is he driving force behind all government development projects and locally elected officials must not make rubbish of the vision.

Senior Treasury Inspector and an Inspector of Treasury Services at the Ministry of Finance, Tabali Patrick, told reporters that the new reforms in the accounting and budgetary frameworks, and the decentralisation code, are important to the Head of State, and all participants must embrace them.

Tabali expressed the desire for all stakeholders to not only master the reforms but implement them on a day-to-day basis.

He said “with the accounting system based on asset or patrimony accounting”, participants will “bring out the evolution of their patrimony in the various local and regional authorities”.

Tabali explained that before the current reforms, budgeting was based on means and not performance objectives. He said at the moment, budgeting and management will be based on set objectives that could be measured and evaluated. 

He added that government will not just give out money to spent but ensure they are spent to attain certain objectives and measuring the impacts on the living standards of the citizens.  

Tabali added that the new fiscal reforms, where taxes will be mobilized by the State, will help improve the output, making resources available in real time, and accelerating decision making and the execution of their various projects by local and regional authorities.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3541 of Friday August 22, 2025