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Cameroon unveils 2021-2023 Economic and Budget programme amid severe economic shocks

Cameeroon’s Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute chaired this July 2, 2020, a Special Cabinet Council devoted to the examination of the economic and budgetary programming document for the period 2021-2023.

The government will table in the next few days in parliament, the economic and budgetary programming document for the period 2021-2023. As a prelude to the ensuing debate, the Prime Minister chaired a special Cabinet Council this Thursday in Yaoundé.

Among the recommendations, Joseph Dion Ngute prescribed austerity measures with a view to finalizing the major projects in progress. The Head of Government, in particular, instructs the ministers in charge of Finance and the Economy to “make budgetary provisions for the completion of the structuring projects in progress, by making savings on current consumption expenses (fuel, acquisition service and official vehicles as well as mission costs, the envelopes of which are considerably reduced), ” the final press release read.

From the same meeting, we learned that public action for the period 2021-2023 will primarily focus on mitigation of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; the continued implementation of the recommendations of the Grand National Dialogue, in particular the reconstruction of the North-West and South-West regions; the progressive deployment of universal health coverage; the maintenance of health surveillance throughout the national territory; the finalization of major first-generation projects, in particular those relating to the Three-Year Emergency Plan for Economic Growth, the Three-Year Youth Plan and the organization of the CHAN 2021 and the 2022 AFCON.

Cameroon also plans to stimulate economic growth through huge investments in the Agriculture and Energy sectors. The Economic growth rate for 2021 is envisaged at 3.2%.


The Government is mapping out the 2021-2023 plan when the National Development Strategy 2020-2030, has still not been published. Experts believe the document must synthesize the next axes of development which will allow the country to reach emergence in 2035 and, above all, to catch up with the delay of the poor performance of the previous plan, the Growth and Employment Strategic Paper GESP.

This program should also trigger a new growth regime after the near completion of the first-generation infrastructure. “There are still three, four years ago, the big dam works, the construction of stadiums planned for the AFCON were expected to be driving growth. This is no longer the case today. We await a new course from the government, ” Vincent Kouete, Director of the Economy department of the Cameroon Employers Association GICAM expresses hope.

Experts say the absence of the 10-year Development master plan had increased the country’s debt in a few years (more than 40% of GDP). “The most worrying thing is not the overall volume of debt, but the country’s ability to repay debt service. The Cameroonian knows from this point of view a high risk,” confirms the IMF’s local representative, Fabien Nsengiyumva. Since 2015 and the brutal fall in the price of oil, the country has effectively faced headwinds.

The IMF official also thinks that, the Covid-19 pandemic can only make the situation worse. “Not only are the prices of oil and raw materials (cocoa, wood, etc.) falling, but the volumes exported will also fall. Not to mention the slowdown in sectors like the hotel industry. Finally, we expect shortages of finished and semi-finished products from China”

Initially announced at 4.1% for 2020, growth (-1.2%, according to the latest IMF estimates) will plunge the country into recession and will not improve the lives of people. Its performance is, of course, limited by the effects of the security crises: in the Far North of the country due to the presence of Boko Haram and, above all, in North West and South West, two regions shaken by bloody clashes between the Ambazonian separatists and the State army. In these areas, Cameroonians are further penalized by inflation rates well above the 3% limit, the convergence criterion imposed on CEMAC countries.

The 2021-2023 Economic and Budgetary vision will be set before Parliamentarians and the Business class for debates and subsequen=t reforms before the drawing of the 2021 Finance law.