Published on : 24/03/23 8:58 AM
The ceremony of handing over the kits made up of the different formats of the citizen budget to the different civil society organisations took place on Thursday, 23 March 2023 in Mbakomo.
Ten civil society organisations (COSADER, CRADEC, PLANOSCAM, AFROLEADERSHIP, HEGTD, JEUDI DE COTONOU, CRADIF, I-WATCH, ODDPE and GTOG), working in the field of public finance, met with officials from the Ministry of Finance, with the main objective of establishing common strategies for popularizing the citizen budget. The ceremony chaired by Mrs. Sophie BOUMSONG, Head of the Budget Reform Division, had a double connotation. On the one hand, it was a question of presenting to the CSO actors invited the structuring of the citizen budget, its new comic strip version (BD) and their good impregnation, and on the other hand, to refine its popularization strategy. This support from the Ministry of Finance is in line with the orientations of Law No. 2008/011 on the Code of Transparency and Good Governance in the management of public finances in Cameroon (CTBG). This law recommends in its articles 48 and 49 respectively, the regular information of citizens and the development of a summary budget document for the public called Citizen Budget.
In this approach, involving civil society is not a risky choice. Indeed, the actors solicited serve as relays to the target populations according to their respective areas of intervention throughout the country. During 2023, the ten or so equipped CSOs will work with their field partners to disseminate the citizen budget in order to make it accessible and understandable to the public. This initiative aims at “a good appropriation and a good use of the document on the one hand, informing and arousing the support of citizens on the other hand, for a better explanation of the finance law to the general public; a better access to budgetary information in order to arouse the support of citizens to participatory management”, recalled Mrs. Sophie BOUMSONG, Chairperson of the session. On the methodical level, it is a question of meshing the national triangle, particularly with the communes, villages, universities, associations, administrative and traditional authorities, women’s and youth associations, high schools, trade unions, etc.
The Ministry of Finance in collaboration with MINEPAT, MINDDEVEL and several civil society organisations, developed the «Citizen Budget 2023». In its structure, the 2023 Citizen Budget is structured around: 1) the economic hypotheses used to draw up the budget; 2) the budgetary process; 3) revenue collection; 4) allocation and expenditure priorities; 5) new measures; 6) major investment projects; 7) decentralisation; and 8) gender budgeting.
Since 2019, the government has committed to publishing the citizen budget every year. This publication will ensure that the uninitiated public (citizens) have access to budget information.
DREF/COM
