Monday 29 February 2016

Recalcitrance at sub-regional level:

Cameroon given deadline to comply with CEMAC
Equatorial Guinea and Chad have been given the same “ultimatum” while Gabon and Chad are far advanced in transposing the CEMAC directives in their national texts.
By EssanEkoninyam in Yaounde
Biya
In an interview with the press published elsewhere in this newspaper, Cameroonian born Paul Tasong, the Commissioner in charge of economic, financial and monetary issues of the CEMAC Commission, said his working visit to Cameroon recently was not to give an ultimatum to the government for failing to toe the CEMAC line. However, from what The Median gathered, that was exactly the purpose of the visit of the financial expert.
                Informed sources told us that in a tête-à-tête he had with the minister of finance, AlamineOusmaneMey, Paul Tasong made it clear that the government of Cameroon would no longer be given the opportunity to delay its transposition of the directives of the Economic Community of Central African States (CEMAC) in its finance law. The CEMAC official said the union has given Cameroon up till the end of this year to this sub-regional rule that was adopted by the six member states on 19 December 2011.
                The said directives, it should be noted, are aimed on the one hand at promoting a modern, efficient and transparent management of public finances, and on the other, at improving the comparability of public finance data, with the aim of better managing the procedure of multilateral surveillance on more reliable and comparable data.
                Critics have wondered aloud why Cameroon is dragging its feet in transposing these CEMAC directives in its finance law whereas it knows what benefit such an action entails. It was on account of these advantages that AlamineOusmaneMey said during the annual conference of the central and external services of his ministry which held earlier this month that works on the transposition of the CEMAC directives were far advanced and would be even more so in 2016.


Equatorial Guinea and Congo also recalcitrant
                This newspaper has learned reliably that Cameroon is not alone in this feet-dragging posture. Equatorial Guinea and Congo are in the same pot of soup. Reason why the CEMAC control team headed by Paul Tasong visited these three countries to sensitize them on the absolute need to transpose the CEMAC directives in their various national texts.
                The Commissioner and his team began their tour in Equatorial Guinea on 10 February 2016 before proceeding to Congo five days later. Their visit in Cameroon ended on Wednesday 24 February. In these three countries, we were reliably informed,Tasong told the officials concerned that what CEMAC is asking of them is not difficult to apply. All they need to apply it, he said, is a good dose of political will as well as a reinforcement of the capacities of public finance reforms.
                Equatorial Guinea and Togo, The Median learned, were also given the deadline of 31 December 2016 to conform to this sub-regional rule.

Enter Gabon and Chad
                For their part, Gabon and Chad are the only two countries that are manifesting a keen interest in the whole issue. They are more advanced in the process than their counterparts named above. In Gabon, for instance, two laws transposing two directives have already been adopted and promulgated into law; one on the code of transparency and good governance of public finances in January 2015 and the other on the organic law pertaining to finance laws in May 2015. Three others, The Median further learned, are only pending signature. All of them received a prior okay from CEMAC.
                As for Chad, it adopted and promulgated the organic law pertaining to the laws of finance on 18 February 2014. Also, a decree was signed on 1 April 2015 on the general rule on public accounting while others have also been signed on the budgetary nomenclature of the state and on the table of financial operations of the state. Like those of Chad, all these laws first received the conform notice of the CEMAC Commission. Meantime, more are in the pipeline.   

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