While waiting for the technical launching of the budget this Wednesday, officials of various ministerial departments have put in place sveral strategies to keep their services going.

The 2018 State budget of Cameroon which stands at FCFA 4513.5 billion is set to be technically launched in Yaounde, January 10-11, 2018. The exercise will be jointly carried out by officials of the Ministry of Finance and those of the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development.

It is only after the official exercise that any financial disbursement can be made. Officials said the national treasury will pump out money for the first quarter of the financial year after the budget officially goes operational, but before March 2018 runs out.

However, as the disbursement is being awaited, government administration has not been grounded. Officials of various ministerial departments have devised various strategies to keep their structures running while delivering their services to users. At the Ministry of Water Resources and Energy, a service head, who prefers not to be named, tells Cameroon Tribune she has yet to get cash to borne recurrent expenditure from the onset of the year.

But rather than being indifferent, she has taken personal initiatives. The service head has used her personal savings to purchase basic office working tools, with the hope that the money will be reimbursed once her ministry’s cash for expenditure is available. “I can’t sit and watch work being obstructed in my service because of lack of two or three reams of papers or ink for the printer,” she says, pointing out the necessity to contribute to nation building.

To Corine Esse, Chief of Communication Unit in the Ministry of Public Works, work has been going on undisrupted in their ministry. According to her, they got enough provision during the fourth and last quarter of the 2017 fiscal year. It closed on November 15, 2017. “With what we have, we can get going until March 2018,” she said.

In other ministries Cameroon Tribune visited, Monday January 8, 2018, Heads of Department of General Affairs gave assurances that there were no particular difficulties in running their establishments. Majority of them said their ministries can continuously be on the move until the first disbursement comes.