2024 State Budget : Essential Projects, Needs Incorporated

In accordance with Section 34(1) of the Constitution which obliges the Prime Minister, Head of Government to present the government's economic, financial, social and cultural programme for the subsequent year at the National Assembly, Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute was thus at the lawmaking House on November 30, 2023 to present the said document. This was during a plenary sitting chaired by the House Speaker, Cavaye Yeguie Djibril that witnessed some discrepancies from members of the opposition on the timeframe in which the said document is being brought to legislators, letting the House Speaker to suspend the sitting for some 45 minutes.
The said programme, as presented by the Head of Government seeks to provide Cameroon with a robust "impact budget" which considers the international and national economic situation, and is based on the assumption of a GDP growth rate of 4.5 per cent and an inflation rate of 4 per cent. Broad lines of the programme which projects a State budget of FCFA 6,740.1 billion, balanced in income and revenue, focus on safeguarding public funds through strengthening measures to prevent embezzlement of public funds. Government's priority in the various sectors were presented in detail by the Prime Minister.  
At the security level, Joseph Dion Ngute noted that actions will be geared at strengthening measures to preserve the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Cameroon. He added that focus will equally be on optimising the security networks across the national territory. Government's projects in decentralisation and local development will be directed at supporting regional and local authorities to own the new judicial framework on local finance, and pursue the implementation of the programme for the mass production of birth certificates. In the public works sector, the programme indicates that government will ensure that at least 600km of newly asphalted roads will be delivered, maintain 504km of such roads and rehabilitate 2,561km of earth roads. Some 321km of other road projects are projected to begin in 2024. Similarly, the delivery of construction works on engineering structures such as the bridge over the Logone (620 linear metres) and the Pallar Bridge (70 linear metres) are planned for 2024.
In the electricity sector, focus will be to continue the construction works on the Nachtigal upstream hydroelectric power station as well as the transmission lines for the Lom-Pangar toe of dam power plant, and ...