On June 12, Finance Minister Louis Paul Motaze (photo) signed two decrees respectively creating specialized payment centres in some ministries and splitting the financial districts of Yaoundé and Maroua.

According to the Ministry of Finance (Minfi), the creation of these specialized payment centres is aimed at stabilizing the expenditure circuit in general and, in particular, relieving the burden on the main pay office. "The ultimate goal is to achieve a ratio of one pay office per ministry. The related decree, therefore, creates 16 pay offices for the ministries. Most of them are assigned to at least two ministries," the Minfi explains.

According to the same source, it had become necessary to split the financial districts of Yaoundé and Maroua given the high volume of operations carried out by those financial districts and their related accounting posts. The said districts’ operations were two or even three times higher than those of the other financial districts. "Because of this situation, there was a high ever-present risk of them losing control over the various operations, leading to various types of fraud,” the Minfi adds.  

It also states that this reform aims to bring the Cameroonian accounting system in line with internationally recognized standards. Eventually, Cameroon will develop an accounting network whose strong decentralization should help meet the requirement to create asset accounts at each ministerial department and to get the State's financial statements certified by the financial jurisdiction acting as public entities’ auditor.

 "The new institutional framework thus created should, without doubt, guarantee transparency in the execution of budgetary operations and the establishment of internal accounting control at each ministerial department to control the risks linked to budget execution, account keeping, and handling public funds. It should also eradicate bad practices caused by a very high concentration of operations at a single post," the Minfi concludes.

Sylvain Andzongo