Public accountability in Cameroon faces persistent challenges with transparency. For the 2024 fiscal year, the Supreme Court’s Audit Chamber could only track 3% of the total subsidies allocated by the state to public enterprises. This stark figure, disclosed in its report on the execution of the finance law, underscores the significant information deficit hampering the Cameroonian financial judiciary’s certification efforts.
Audit report questions traceability of public transfers
The financial jurisdiction, tasked with judicial oversight of state accounts and public establishments, relies on supporting documents provided by authorizing officers and beneficiary entities. However, out of the total financial contributions granted to Cameroon’s public portfolio in 2024, only a minuscule portion could be linked to a clearly identified beneficiary and documented execution. The remaining 97% effectively fall outside the scope of verification for financial magistrates.
This statistic is far from trivial. It strikes at the heart of a fundamental governance issue: the state’s capacity to monitor how resources transferred to its various entities are utilized. State-owned companies, public administrative bodies, and entities with majority or strategic state participation receive substantial annual allocations, often presented as balancing subsidies, investment grants, or tariff compensations.
Public sector under budget strain in Cameroon
Cameroon’s parastatal sector encompasses dozens of enterprises operating in crucial areas such as energy, hydrocarbons, transport, telecommunications, agro-industry, and water. Many are structurally dependent on state financial support to maintain their operations or meet their obligations, including entities like the National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH), Camair-Co, and Sonara, whose financial struggles frequently necessitate high-level state intervention.
Amidst tight public finances, driven by the need to keep the budget deficit below thresholds agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund (FMI) under the current program, controlling the flow of subsidies becomes a critical public policy imperative. The economic and financial program supported by Washington explicitly emphasizes transparency in transfers between the Treasury and public entities, a condition for credible management of the fiscal consolidation trajectory.
The Audit Chamber’s findings emerge despite Yaoundé’s commitment, as part of public finance management reforms, to enhance the reporting of accounting information from public enterprises. The establishment in 2017 of a dedicated directorate within the Ministry of Finance to monitor the state’s portfolio was specifically intended to bolster this supervision. Yet, tangible results have been slow to materialize.
A challenge to budget sovereignty
Beyond mere accounting, the inability to document the destination and effective use of nearly all public subsidies undermines several strategic initiatives. It limits the scope of parliamentary debate on budget settlement laws, curtails the Supreme Court’s early warning function, and deprives multilateral funders, notably the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB), of a reliable basis for sizing their budget support.
For private investors, particularly those involved in public-private partnerships or concession contracts with Cameroonian public entities, this opacity introduces an additional risk factor. The quality of sovereign credit is also measured by the robustness of internal controls over budget transfers. By publishing these findings, the Audit Chamber fulfills its watchdog role and publicly demands compliance. The message to the executive is unambiguous: without substantial improvements in information flow, the certification of state accounts will remain a partial exercise. Practically, this requires the widespread adoption of a standardized accounting framework for public enterprises, the enhancement of budget information systems, and the effective application of sanctions against defaulting managers.
