Heated Debate Marks Adoption of Budget

Cabinet Ministers and Parliamentarians Monday worked late into the night and continued yesterday to finanly adopt the FCFA 3, 236 billion 2013 budget.

It started in all serenity but the calm lasted only some hours. Seemingly, because the stakes were high as could be read on the faces of most Cabinet Ministers and Parliamentarians in the Glasshouse yesterday December 10. They were led by the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Relations with the Assemblies, Amadou Ali. Also present at the National Assembly was the Minister Director of the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency of the Republic, Martin Belinga Eboutou.

The plenary sitting that was basically meant to adopt the 2013 State budget was chaired by House Speaker Hon. Cavaye Yeguie Djibril. The first part of the sitting took several hours of the day and was dedicated to the presentation of the finance bill of the Republic of Cameroon for the 2013 financial year. The General Rapporteur of the Finance and Budget Commission of the National Assembly, Hon. Luc Koa, presented the over 200-page document that takes into consideration the wishes of Cameroon's Members of Parliament who as law-makers want to ensure that the much talked-about result-oriented budget will not be hampered by the slowdown in economic activity in advanced economies and emerging countries. And that the remotest areas would benefit from dividends of economic growth which should raise the living conditions of all Cameroonians to an acceptable level. But most especially to ensure that measures have been envisaged to ensure acceleration of growth and an equitable sharing of the fruits of the said growth as the country works towards emergence by 2035. In so doing, Hon. Luc Koa presented the document, ministry by ministry and sector by sector, all in a bid to carve out best ways of meeting the aspirations of Cameroonians.

The plenary sitting that started at 11 am went on recess at 2 pm to restart at 3 pm, to enable overseers of government action to get fully ready for the marathon exercise that ran late into the night with the second part of it dedicated to general debates. Discussions that saw the development agents in various constituencies of the country question the content of the programme budget as presented by various Ministers. The session was long, debates hot, but objectives met. FCFA 3, 236 billion was finally adopted as the 2013 State budget.