Governance: Ensuring Budgetary Discipline

The economic and financial situation of Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) countries may not be in the red yet, but stakeholders absolutely need to sit up to pre-empt any looming danger. Observers are however unanimous that the current state of affairs in the sub-region calls for worry, looking at the situation at hand and what could befall the countries and its peoples should the situation go out of hand. 
The Heads of State of the sub-region themselves spoke loudly and clearly that the slow-pace of putting in place global strategy aimed at reviving the economies exposes the countries to persistent inflation, the weak consolidation of economic growth and public finances as well as the depreciation of the exchange reserves. In fact, records show that the level of foreign exchange reserves, which increased from 2.3 months in 2016 to 4.6 months in 2023 due to goods and services imports, is experiencing a downward trend since 2024. Disturbing as well is the outlook for commodity prices and international trade that seems unfavourable. Indeed, worrisome signals of darker days ahead both for the countries and their respective peoples. 
The extra-ordinary summit jointly convened by Cameroon’s Head of State, Paul Biya, and the current President of the CEMAC Heads of State Conference, CAR’s Prof. Faustin Archange Touadera, therefore examined the issues and came up with varied recommendations which if effectively and jointly applied could shield the sub-region from any economic meltdown.
Evidently, one of them is striving for budgetary discipline which is among the virtues of good governance. This entails controlling what the countries of the sub-region have and how they are spent. Struggling to source for funding to keep the economies going is certainly an enduring challenge. More puzzling even for a sub-region that imports more than it exports and worse still, exporting goods in raw form at insignificant rates only to import their finished products at exorbitant cost. Striving to get the scarce financial resources only to squander them in unproductive spending crumbles the economies and leaves them vulnerable to the slightest shock, be they internal or external. It is a serious problem requiring efficient control.
It was therefore logical that the host, President Paul Biya, stated clearly in his closing speech that, “As already noted previously, we must further diversify our economies, fast-track structural reforms in terms of governance, fiscal discipline, improving the business climate as well as deepening regional integration.” As a matter of fact, economies that have emerged had as one of their foundations; better management of their scarce resources. Resorting to borrowing as most, if not all, CEMAC economies function and not judiciously using the loans to bet...