The Cameroonian parliament has approved the country’s national budget for 2013, put at F CFA 3236 billion.
The MPs met overnight in plenary here Monday to consider the budget proposal.
The 2013 budget is F CFA 436 billion, or 15.6 per cent, higher than the 2012 figure of F CFA 2,800 billion.
The budget has been criticised by many stakeholders, including Jean-Marc Bikolo, coordinator of “Dynamique citoyenne”, a network of independent groups that monitor public policies.
He cited an overly optimistic macroeconomic forecast, poor mobilisation of domestic resource; propensity to incur debt, low absorption of external resources, and low investment allocation as some of the shortcomings of the budget.
For his part, Alain Bertrand Mendouga, a Cameroonian economist working for the technical expertise office, talks about the ”war of figures” between the country’s President and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the growth rate that could be generated by the 2013 budget.
“The circular issued by the President of the Republic announced a growth rate of 6.7 per cent in 2013, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF)…last November says that Cameroon’s 2013 growth rate may not exceed 5 per cent,” he said.
