Motaze honoured at Heads of State Summit in Bangui!.

The Head of State, President Paul Biya, was represented at the summit by the Minister of External Relations, Mbella Mbella. 

The awardees stated that Minister Motaze is ranked among the top finance ministers on the entire continent.

Motaze, they disclosed, was awarded the medal of honour in recognition of his steadfast commitment to promoting regional integration and sound financial governance.

The leaders said the recognition is not only for Minister Motaze’s personal achievements but also highlights Cameroon’s growing prominence in regional economic and financial performance.

The distinction, it was also added, recognises the efforts of Cameroon in implementing structural reforms aimed at strengthening macroeconomic stability and budgetary efficiency.

They said it also underscores the country's economic attractiveness, strategic, disciplined management and good financial governance, driven by the strategic vision of the President of the Republic, Paul Biya, which continues to elevate Cameroon within the Central African Economic and Monetary Community.

Before the recognition, Minister Motaze and other members of the Cameroonian delegation, had earlier taken part in the 43rd Ordinary Session of the Council of Ministers of the Economic Union of Central Africa, UEAC. 

Minister Motaze the reformist 

Minister Motaze, amid conditions that have put the economies of several nations out of course, has been an unshakeable reformer with multiform actions and reforms.

He has been working to ameliorate productivity, efficient management of resources, mobilising resources, financing giant infrastructure projects and the operational running of the country.

Motaze has worked diligently to enable Cameroon survive the recent rollercoaster hiccups that continue to disrupt national and international economies to keep things in order.

Tracing from the Boko Haram incursions in the Far North Region to the over eight years and still counting crisis in the North West and South West Regions, Minister Motaze has kept the State financially resilient.

Civil servants have continued to receive their salaries while internal and external debts are being serviced without any default. 

Yet, since the National Oil Refining Corporation, SONARA, suffered an inferno in May 2019, Motaze has steadied the disruptions that would have affected not only the supply of petroleum products but also the banking sector.

Billions of SONARA debts are successfully being managed with some being refinanced and investors guaranteed of a progressive return to normalcy.

He ensured the State recaptured 14.5 billion FCFA from ghost civil servants. Motaze is the architect of the Operation Campaign for the Physical Headcount of State Personnel dubbed COPPE.

Motaze also stepped into the worrying situation of the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, and released a bailout blueprint for the corporation. 

On the financial market, both within the country, the CEMAC Subregion and globally, Minister Motaze has made good use of the power bestowed on him by the Head of State.

He has continuously recorded outstanding successes in raising funds for major development projects. This has often times left doomsayers marveled at his power of engagement and understanding of global financial trends.

He is also sustaining subvention for other key State structures, introducing reforms that have curbed wastage at the treasury and opting to other digital changes that have kept State’s financial anatomy in good health.

Zoom on CEMAC Summit resolutions

At the end of the recent CEMAC Summit, the baton of leadership for the next one year, moved from Prof Faustin Archange Touadera of CAR to Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo Brazzaville. 

The final press release indicated that the handing over ceremony was a manifestation of the collective will among CEMAC member States, to ensure institutional continuity, strengthen subregional economic growth and prevailing monetary integration.

They pledged to accelerate these processes, especially the free movement of goods and persons, by putting in place the needed infrastructure, equipment and man power. 

This, all with the end game of advancing regional cohesion and all-round stability. 

Participants also acknowledged that the event provided the enabling environment for participants to reach fruitful agreements on cross border and cross continent business promotion to further empower operators and enable them to withstand global economic shocks.

Leaders also agreed to put in place mechanisms that will spur financial stability, regional growth, and continue to project an image of subregional unity.

They also agreed to put up mechanisms that will enable the takeoff of the long-postponed merger between CEMAC and the Economic Community of Central African States, CEEAC. 

The resolution is viewed by participants as having the potential of laying the foundation for the emergence of a common indigenous currency in a unified monetary and economic space in Central Africa. 

It was equally agreed that an indigenous common currency will enable member States better manage growing external debt, they all agreed.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3562 of Friday September 12, 2025