The Southwest Region Budgets Over 13 Billion Francs CFA for 2012

By Stephen Njumbe Sako

The sum of 13,689,522,200 Francs CFA has been voted and launched as the 2012 budget for the Southwest Region of Cameroon. The launching ceremony on Monday, January 16, 2012 at the National Social Insurance Fund was presided over by the Secretary General to the Southwest Governor's Office, Handeson Ketong. The ceremony was attended by senior regional executives, administrators, stakeholders and economic operators in diverse fields of business. Mr Handeson Ketong said the year 2012 has come with remarkable projects earmarked for the region. "The advent of the 2012 fiscal year has come along with new developmental projects for the Southwest. The budget of the state represents the action of the state within every nation," Mr Ketong highlighted.

He addressed the issue of late delays in contract execution. According to the SG, “the late execution of public contracts and poor whether conditions, amongst other things, are some of the factors that work against the smooth flow of activities at the level of the region.”

He lauded the stakeholders concerned with the execution of public and para-public contracts in the previous years, and for their indispensable efforts to the improvement of the budget. He intimated that it is only through the judicious management of state funds that they can improve the development of the Southwest Region. He added that necessary measures have been put in place to tract down embezzlers of public funds.

The 2012 budget observed a significant increase relative to 2011. The budget for 2011 was 12,932,724,800 FCFA. In 2011, the Southwest Region received 458 projects which amounted to 5,860,172,501 FCFA, witnessing an 81.77% of financial engagements and 88.57% of fiscal engagements.

In the distribution of the 2012 budget, 6,649,926,000 FCFA is the recurrent budget set aside for the running of credits, while 7,490,596,000 FCFA is the investment budget.

Speaking on behalf of the Minister of Finance, Mr Bernard Dilangue, the Chief of Missions in that Ministry, said the quality of savings should be an important factor in realizing the goals of the 2012 budget. He however enjoined stakeholders to wisely exercise the use of public funds put at their disposal, for a smooth flow of the fiscal year.

The launching ceremony ended with a presentation of an exhaustive circular on the management and execution of state budget to attain its objectives in line with Cameroon’s Growth and Employment Strategy.

© The Entrepreneur Newspaper 2012. All Rights Reserved