2015 state budget

Skyrocketing running expenditures!
The 2015 state budget has been adopted by parliament and promulgated into law by the Head of State, and the minister of Finance has fixed the conditions for its execution. At a cabinet meeting on 17 December, 2014, Prime Minister Philemon Yang requested each minister to reconfigure the running budget of their ministry, taking into consideration a 15% reduction of expenditures. The head of government said so after President Paul Biya had called on the ministers to cut down on the running costs of their respective departments in the council of ministers meeting one week earlier. A look at what some of these ministries have as budget shows that neither the President’s nor the PM’s call is likely to be heeded.

Over 1 083bn paid as salaries and pension
The mass salary of the state increases at a disturbing rate. But this does not seem to be bothering the government this far. Yet, in 2015, the amount is likely to hit the skies! The expenditures on the state personnel amount to 900 billion FCFA, that is, 41.67% of the running budget. This is not all. There is an additional 183 billion FCFA that is paid out as pension. These amounts, when put together, come up to 1 083 billion FCFA.
It should be recalled that the total investment budget of the state is 1 150 billion FCFA, 1 075 billion FCFA of which is effectively dedicated to development projects. It can thus be realized that Cameroon pays state workers more than it finances its development projects.
    Statistics show that the increase in workers’ remuneration is constant. It moved from 414 billion FCFA in 2005 to 668 billion FCFA in 2011 and 803 billion FCFA in 2013. Last year, the mass salary of the state was 835 billion FCFA. Thus within ten years, state expenditures have more than doubled. It is now at more than 6% of the GDP and so surpasses the limit of 5% recommended by international standards.
    With the special recruitments in the police and army announced for this year, the mass salary is expected to witness a further rise.

65bn for celebration and mission allowances
    The chapter on representation, mission, reception and ceremony allowances reappears in 2015 after it was forgotten for one year. In 2014, the amount for these rose to 60 billion FCFA, indicating an increase of 5 billion FCFA. It is in this chapter that we find the bulk of President Paul Biya’s criticism of the lifestyle of the different ministries. The President talks, amongst other things, of “the excessive increase of missions particularly abroad” and asks that the allowances allocated for that be reduced.
    Clearly, the President’s instruction is not followed. By the way, the state will allocate many tens of billions to maintain the network of missions and finance “eating” allowances. Ironically, it is under President Biya that wastage is most noticed.
    In fact, the Presidency of the Republic is foremost in this wastage exercise as it allocates a whopping 8.4 billion FCFA for “eating” and mission allowances. If the attached services are added, the amount rises to 9.5 billion FCFA. Last year, the Presidency and its attached services were only at 8.6 billion FCFA as far as “eating” and mission allowances were concerned.
    The ministry of Sport and Physical Education follows suit with an envelope of 7.6 billion FCFA, an amount which represents more than half the running budget of this ministry which stands at 14 billion FCFA. This amount is justified by the participation of the Indomitable Lions in the Africa Cup of Nations that began in Equatorial Guinea on 17 January. This amount was almost the same one year ago when the Lions took part in the World Cup in Brazil.
    Third in line is the ministry of Secondary Education with 4.6 million FCFA, with a slight reduction of close to 250 million FCFA. Next is the ministry of Agriculture with an amount of 3.4 billion FCFA each. In 2014, it was at the same level with the ministry of Defense at 2.3 billion FCFA. Today, the latter ministry closes this classification with 2.7 billion FCFA.


More than 35bn for fuel alone!
    The total amount the state will spend on fuel and lubricants in 2015 is 34.7 billion FCFA. Last year, the amount came up to 32.6 billion FCFA. There is therefore an increase of more than 2 billion FCFA this year. In his special message at the council of ministers meeting on 9 December, 2014, President Biya said:
“I am asking the government to modify their lifestyle by blocking expenditure on goods and services, and by drastically reducing mission allowances, the buying of vehicles and fuel.” However, this call does not seem to have been heeded.
    As far as fuel is concerned, the ministry of Defense is top on the list with 9.2 billion FCFA, being 400 million FCFA higher than its amount of last year. Nevertheless, observers see this increase as being too small given that Cameroon’s soldiers, who are engaged in a war with Boko Haram, need much fuel for their war vehicles and planes.
    Second on this list is the Presidency of the Republic with 4.2 billion FCFA as against 3.6 billion FCFA in 2014. No one can explain why the Presidency’s increase is bigger than that of the defense ministry which is at war.
Following is the police which have been allocated the sum of 3.1 billion FCFA.     This shows a 300 million FCFA increase from last year’s amount. Critics do not also understand why the police that need a lot of fuel for their operations should be allocated a smaller amount for this precious commodity than the Presidency of the Republic.
    The ministry of Agriculture is in the fourth position with a total amount of 1.7 billion FCFA as against 1.2 billion FCFA in 2014. Next is the ministry of Public Contracts to which 1.6 billion FCFA has been allocated.
    It should be noted that the ministry of Youth Affairs has made a great leap forward, recording an amount of 100 million FCFA, up from 40.8 million last year when it occupied the last position in the classification.

47.5bn for bonuses
    The amount provided for bonuses this year is 47.5 billion, being 900 million FCFA more than that of 2014. This money is normally supposed to be given to hard working and deserving civil servants whose efforts help to advance the work of Cameroon’s administration. But to whom does the bulk of money rather go? Your guess is as good as mine!
    In this chapter, the National Assembly comes first with the sum of 8.7 billion FCFA, up from 8.4 billion FCFA last year. This is the money used for the compensation of parliamentarians as well the administrative staff of the house as well as for the payment of their various bonuses during parliamentary sessions.
In the second position is the ministry of Finance to which the sum of 8.5 billion FCFA has been allocated as against 8.4 billion FCFA in 2014. This amount, it is also worth noting, is two times bigger than that reserved as the public investment budget for that ministry this year. It will be used to compensate workers here who will be obliged to spend extra hours in their offices during the preparation and execution of this year’s budget.
    Stagnating in the third position is the ministry of Public Contracts with the sum of 4.8 billion which it equally had in 2014. Then follows the ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization with 2 billion FCFA up from 1.9 billion FCFA last year. The Presidency and its attached services close this classification of the first five structures with close to 1.3 billion FCFA.

Water, electricity bills take 25.2bn
    The state expenditure on water, electricity, gas and other sources of energy does not change from year to year. Which is why the amount for this year stands at 25.2 billion FCFA just like that of last year. This presupposes that the budgets of the different ministries for these items ought not to change as well.
It is for this reason that the ministry of Defence, which is first on the list in this chapter, maintains its last year’s envelope of 4.1 billion FCFA. Following is the Presidency of the Republic with 2.3 billion which is the same amount it had last year, and which amount observers say is too high.
    Third is the ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation whose amount of last year to the tune of 2.1 billion FCFA was equally maintained. In this amount, bills in the residences of “chefs de terre” are included.
The ministry of Public Health comes in the fourth position. However, rather than maintain its amount of last year, it had a reduction of close to 35 million FCFA, as 1.98 billion FCAF is the sum allocated to that ministry for 2015. Fifth is the ministry of Finance which has the same sum as in 2014 – 1.94 billion FCFA.

ELECAM bags 10.6bn
    The sum of 10.6 billion FCFA has been allocated to the national elections governing body, ELECAM. Of this amount, 1 billion FCFA is meant for investment and 9.6 billion FCFA for running expenditures. Last year, ELECAM had a total budget of 11.1 billion FCFA.

15.2bn for Senate
    The budget for the upper house of Parliament has not changed. The sum of 15.2 billion FCFA that it had last year is exactly the same amount that has been allocated this year. While 3 billion FCFA will be used for investment, the remaining 12.2 billion FCFA will be the running budget.
    Comparatively, the budget for the lower house of Parliament (the National Assembly) for this year stands at 19 billion FCFA, up from 18 billion FCFA in 2014. Meanwhile that for the Yaounde Conference Centre is 1.5 billion FCFA as against 2 billion FCFA last year. (It must not be forgotten that the Senate consists of 100 members while the National Assembly has 180 members).
724bn of loan
    When a country does not succeed to have its expenditures covered by its own incomings, it is said to be in budgetary deficit. This has been the case with Cameroon for many years now. In 2015, the country will borrow 724 billion FCFA to complete its budget. Last year, the country borrowed 554 billion FCFA for this purpose.