Parliament adopts 2016 State Budget

-The budget was adopted on Sunday morning, in a plenary session that lasted over 14 hours

By Mercy Neba in Yaounde

AlamineOusman Mey

The 2016 finance law has been voted in parliament. The law that also contains the state budget for 2016 was adopted early on Sunday morning, during a plenary session that lasted for over 14 hours – beginning at 10am Saturday and ending at 2.30am Sunday.

                The plenary was marked by a presentation of the 207-page report of the finance and budget committee that scrutinized the bill.  The plenary also provided a forum for general debates on the bill during which about 20 MPs asked a barrage of questions to government ministers.

                Some of the issues raised during the question and answer session included imbalance in the distribution of budgetary allocations for different regions; low consumption of the public investment budget; epileptic energy supply; the non construction of roads like the Loum-Tombel-Kumba-EkondoTiti and the Kumbo-Ndu-Nkambe stretch of the ring road; why the NW and SW are the regions with the least number of kms of tarred roads; the protest march by soldiers on the streets of Yaounde; the fight against Boko Haram and the restructuring of Camair-co.

                In fact, the questions touched on all sectors of national life including agriculture, public contracts, justice, P&T, education, sports, communication and public health. And the ministers stayed in the hemicycle until late into the night to provide answers to the questions.

                After the general debates, the MPs proceeded to examine the budget article by article. They later adopted the bill.

                Speaking after the adoption, the minister of finance, AlamineOusmanMey, expressed joy that a laborious yet important process had come to its desired end.He said the budget will enable the state to continue with its policy of infrastructural development, forester economic growth, create employments, curb inflation and also incite private investment.

                The 2014 budget stands at 4.234 billion CFA francs, an increase of 488 billion cfa francs from the 2015 budget , and a 13.2% increase in relative terms.