These amounts showed a downward trend between the first quarters of 2023 and 2024 according to the Long and Medium Term Economic and Budgetary Programming Document 2025-2027 published by the Ministry of Finance, in view of the Budget Orientation Debate in the National Assembly.
According to the document published by officials of the Ministry of Finance, Cameroon has repaid 291.4 billion CFA francs by the end of March 2024 compared to 428.6 billion CFA francs in the first quarter of 2023. In detail, between January and March 2024, approximately 56% of the 291.4 billion CFA francs, or 153.8 billion CFA francs, were used to clear the issues of assimilable Treasury bills (BTA). These loans with a maturity of one year had been made by the Cameroonian State on the public securities market of the Bank of Central African States (Beac) in order to alleviate occasional cash flow tensions.
While the Cameroonian State plans to increase domestic debt repayments from 947.3 billion FCFA to 1,427.3 billion FCFA, or 480 billion FCFA more. The document presented by the Minfi indicates that the envelope used to repay the State’s domestic debt in the first quarter of 2024 represents 53.5% of the overall repayments estimated at 544.6 billion FCFA. Despite a 32% year-on-year drop in domestic debt repayments, government authorities are campaigning for an acceleration of repayments during 2024.
According to the scheme proposed in connection with the new budget supplement, the government’s objective is to break out of the vicious circle of accumulating arrears of more than 90 days.
To this end, the forecasts for the repayment of the principal of the structured domestic debt increase by 163 billion FCFA to reach 648.5 billion FCFA. In addition, and regarding the settlement of outstanding payments, the amount increases by 317 billion FCFA and rises to 537 billion FCFA while the budgetary provisions due to the payment of pending bills show an upward trend set at more than 144%.
