Members of the National Assembly have agreed that for a country like Cameroon, to organise four elections in one year is quite challenging, the extension will give all stakeholders in the electoral process the leverage to better prepare.
In 2025, the terms of office of the President of the Republic, Members of the National Assembly, Regional and Municipal Councillors comes to an end, thus warranting the organisation of elections to renew them. The Constitutional Laws Committee of the National Assembly, chaired by Hon Zondol Hersesse has examined Bill No.2064/PJL/AN to extend the term of office of Members of the National Assembly.
The aim of the extension is according to explanations is to help the various stakeholders in the electoral process to have the requisite time to perfectly organise the elections of 2025 and 2026 in order to reduce eventual disorders that could tarnish the elections. According to Hon. Malomba, member of the committee that scrutinised the bill, “the bill is welcome and the reason why we supported its adoption at the level of the committee is due to the overarching motive which is that of ensuring better organisation of the upcoming four elections. It goes without saying that better organised elections will be more credible, free, fair and transparent. It’s our hope that others endorse the bill to give the Head of State the leverage he needs together with the other stakeholders in the process to organise proper elections.”
Meanwhile, Bill No.2060 /PJL/AN to ratify Ordinance No.2024/001 of June 2024 amending and supplementing certain provisions of Law No.2023/019 of 19 December 2023 to lay down the Financial Law of the Republic of Cameroon for 2024 financial year was examined by the Finance and Budget Committee of the National Assembly, chaired by Hon. Moutymbo Rosette Ayayi. The ordinance comes in the wake of adjustments to major components of public fiscal balance resulting from trends in the introduction of new measures affecting the execution of the 2024 budget as well as increase in revenue levels in relation to initial projections. In fact, the general budget has increased from CFAF 6 740.1 billion to CFAF 7 278.1 billion.
According to Louis Paul Motaze, Minister of Finance, “because of the transparency we are looking for, the Head of State has decided that since there are some changes that occurred in the running of the budget, those innovations should be added. There is a slight increase in the budget. We are now more than CFAF 7000 billion and this has been orchestrated by some factors. The first is that we have gained more resources, take the example of the taxation, councils and what we earn from our cooperation with our partners”.
Recent economic developments show that Cameroon experienced a downturn in economic activity in 2023 and this performance and the drop in oil sector activities expected to worsen in 2024 account for the review of the 2024 growth rate to 4.1 percent as against 4.5 percent in the initial finance Law.
Claudette CHIN
