2016 Budget: 161 programmes tabled, 157 adopted

The third session of the steering Committee of the Programme to Modernise the Administration by introducing Results-based Management (PROMAGAR) was held yesterday at the Star Building.

Out of 161 programmes that were tabled for scrutiny, 157 were adopted during the two-hour in-camera session which was chaired by the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Philemon Yang.

The projects had been retained by the Inter-Ministerial Committee for the Examination of Programmes (CIEP) during its fourth session from August 6 to 21, 2015 in preparation for the second triennial Budget Programme due in 2016.

Speaking to the press after the session, the Head of the Coordinating Unit of PROMAGAR and Technical Adviser at the Prime Minister’s Office, George Elanga Obam, revealed that projects which were not adopted were either discarded or fused.

In that category, the Ministry of Water Resources and Energy was told to fuse two of its programmes likewise the Ministry of Women Empowerment and the Family. The session discarded a programme of the Ministry of Tourism and Leisure which aimed at ensuring security of tourists.

The Prime Minister instructed the Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey, who is in charge of budget execution to retain the adopted programmes and undertake the corrections made. Ministers were also told to ensure that henceforth budget conferences will hold after the CIEP session so that programmes adopted benefit from allocation of resources. The Minister of Finance was also tasked to ensure that inspectors general who have the duty of auditing programmes should be assigned as programme coordinators.

While the spirit of conviviality and exchange prevailed during the session, George Elanga Obam said, the participants did not lose sight of the objective of government policy to ensure sustainable economic development with emphasis on improving the living conditions of Cameroonians.

Since 2007 when State budget management by programmes was institutionalised in Cameroon, public finance reforms have known several milestones highlighted by the integral shift in 2013 to the new programme budget paradigm whose second phase starts in 2016. Thus, the Finance Minister in his presentation yesterday noted that since 2012, there is growing satisfaction with the implementation of reforms which introduced results-based management through the notion of the programme budget.