The Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey in the Committee on Finance and Budget of the National Assembly defended the  bill to ratify the Ordinance No. 2017/1 of 17 May 2017 to amend and supplement some provisions of Law N0 2016/18 of 14 December 2016:  Finance Law of the Republic of Cameroon for the 2017 financial year. This was in  the presence of the Minister of Public Service  and Administrative Reform, Michel Ange Angouin  who represented the Vice Prime Minister, Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Relations with the Assemblies, Amadou Ali.

Government explains that under the ordinance, the amount of non-concessional loans which was authorised to conclude during the 2017 financial year increased from FCFA 500 billion to FCFA 1,200 billion. The Finance Minister explained that the ceiling for concessional loans which was fixed at FCFA 500 billion remains unchanged. The reason for signing the ordinance, government stated, is that to date, the ceiling of FCFA 1,000 billion  for concessional and non-concessional loans fixed under the 2017 Financial Law was almost reached, whereas, at the same time, files under review, already approved by the National Public Debt Committee (NPDC), stood at FCFA 607.78 billion. This comes to add to the loans under negotiation for projects relating to the hosting of the 2019 AFCON,  that is about FCFA 130 billion. The signing of the ordinance therefore,  enables the government to remove the constraints and execute the development projects scheduled for the 2017 financial year. 

Alamine Ousmane Mey: “Our Debt Level Is Sustainable”

Minister of Finance

“It was an opportunity again to discuss with the members of the Committee on Finance and Budget of the National Assembly. This time, I defended the draft bill which is ratifying the ordinance the Head of State signed on 17 May 2017 to raise the ceiling of our debt. As you know, the non-concessional loans ceiling has been raised from FCFA 500 billion to FCFA 1,200 billion and the concessional loan remains at FCFA 500 billion. This is to make our government be able to implement some of the projects that are necessary for our development plan. This time, we had to incorporate the part of AFCON 2019 amounting to FCFA 130 billion just to make sure that all the projects being executed are going to help us meet our target. It is also necessary to demonstrate to the commission and the country at large that our debt level is 30 per cent of our GDP and it is sustainable so far.”