Accounting system reforms: Gov´t calls for rigour at level of diplomatic missions.

The aim was to evaluate the workability of applications introduced by the government at the level of Cameroon´s diplomatic and consular services. It was attended by accounting officers from key diplomatic institutions abroad. 

The workshop, MINFI officials noted, was to ensure that diplomatic missions start effective implementation of the “PROBMIS-AMBASSADE and “PATRIMONY-WEB” applications during the 2025 budget implementation period.

The said applications, they noted, were designed to ease the treatment of diplomatic expenditure at the level of embassies and Cameroon´s consular posts abroad. 

The same applications, officials added, are installed at the MINFI headquarters, to guarantee monitoring and exchange of information between foreign missions and home offices.

Officials said reforms at the level of diplomatic missions are meant to facilitate and ease personnel management and operational functions, as it concerns their dematerialization, as started at the level of the central administration and decentralized collectivities, of which diplomatic missions form a part.

Reforms attaining objectives 

Closing the workshop on behalf of the Minister of Finance on Friday February, 14, the Director General of the Treasury, Financial and Monetary Cooperation, Moh Sylvester, and the Director General of the Budget, Cyril Edou, were unanimous that the reforms were attaining their objectives.

This, they said, was not only at national level, but abroad, and specifically at the level of the country´s diplomatic missions.

The officials assured that efforts to sanitise the State accounting system through the introduction of different types of reforms, especially digitalization, are paying off both at home and at the level of Cameroon´s diplomatic missions abroad.

They, however, added that much still needs to be done to bring diplomatic missions abreast with the innovations being introduced, especially at the level of the Directorate General of the Budget.

Specific achievements

It was disclosed that the new applications and accounting reforms through digitalization generally, have helped to curb pilfering at the different accounting departments; eased transactions between workers and hierarchy as well as between public services providers and users.

For the Director General of the Budget, the new applications, and financial reforms, have eased revenue projections both in terms of receipts and expenditure because of the proximity the applications have created between government establishments and individual users and or contributors. 

“At the moment, these applications allow the payer/receiver to easily meet and carry out transactions and produce auxiliary accounting documents for credits consumed by diplomatic missions and Cameroon´s consular posts in foreign countries,” Cyril Edou stated.

Expatiated on the shortcomings of both the PROBMIS AMBASSADE and the PATRIMONY WEB, identified at the level of the Directorate General of the Budget, Edou said the workshop was organised to close the lope holes. 

Edou said the accounting officers from key diplomatic missions abroad were also invited to come home and present their assessments of the applications and what they saw as their specific challenges in the process of practical implementation.

During the two days, some representatives of foreign missions had the opportunity to present their views on the challenges of implementing the applications, and made recommendations on what they thought was needed to improve performance. And if necessary, recommend other applications they thought could be more appropriate and more serviceable for use in diplomatic missions. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3368 of Monday February 17, 2025