By DOH JAMES SONKEY
The 2018 Budget of the Ministry of Higher Education which stands at FCFA 61 billion has been launched with staff of this ministry and Heads of state universities poised to use the budget to maximize their expected results.
They took the commitment in front of Higher Education Minister and Chancellor of Academic Orders, Prof Jacques Fame Ndongo last February 2, 2018 at the National Advanced School of Engineering in Yaoundé at a seminar organized to launch the ministry’s budget.
After moderating the budget launching seminar for the Ministry of Higher Education, Prof Jacques Fame Ndongo explained to reporters that “it was a capacity building seminar for staff of the Ministry of Higher Education and for senior officials in the state universities. This is the first time our higher education sector is experiencing it and we want to thank officials of the ministries of Finance, Economy and Public Contracts for coming towards us. We learned many things; the necessity to supervise public expenditure, budget discipline and the necessity to maximize budgetary consultations at the Ministry of Higher Education and a necessity to produce an annual calendar of activities thereby prioritizing them so that the concern ministries be acquainted with our grievances.”
Animated by the Director General of Budget at the Ministry of Finance, Edou Alo’o Cyrill who granted an expose on the diagnosis of problems faced in budget execution, the Director General of Economy, Planning and Public Investment at the Ministry of Economy, Isaac Tamba who spoke on public investment budget for 2018 and a senior official of the Ministry of Public Contracts who granted an expose on the award of public contracts, the seminar helped to harmonize common comprehensions on certain procedures linked to this year’s budget execution.
The Director General of Budget, Edou Alo’o Cyrill told reporters that their three Ministers who dispatched them to the field jointly took a decision to make sure that instead of always going but to the regions that have just 20% of the state budget like in the past for the launching, they collectively decided that the impact will be much better if the launching takes place but in ministries that have 80% of the state budget. The situation is even complex at the Ministry of Higher Education that has university institutions managed by top officials.