BY SIMON NDIVE KALLA
The Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, has adopted the sum of FCFA 57 Billion for 2023 fiscal year.
The budget which is balanced in both revenue and expenditure with an increase of 26% as per last year’s budget which stood at FCFA 45 billion has been dubbed “ambitious budget”.
This was revealed to the press by both the Board chair of CDC, Hope SonaEbai and the GM, Franklin Ngoni Njie on Thursday, December 15, 2022 after an 8-hourslong meeting.
According to the Board chair, the board meeting was aimed at examining and adopting the corporation’s 2023 budget. He added that next year the corporation shall begin the diversification of its crops notably the cultivation of cassava and corn.
“In terms of security and other ambitious plant that we have in the various areas. We’re hoping to realise that budget to make the corporation move forward in the discussion. The major plan of diversification that the management has been working on it, we hope it will come to fruition this year.” Hope Sona Ebai said.
He added that this year they need to put into practice what they decided a year ago on diversification of short cycle crops like cassava and corn.
On his part, the General Manger of CDC, Franklin Ngoni Njie dubbed the budget as ambitious budget based on the fact that there is some relative improvement in the security situation in some areas of operation which implies that they shall be able to exploit other areas as they did last year.
“We also see in the budget the diversification project that we had coming into execution in 2023”.The budget is quite ambitious, it rests on the fact that we are building on certain commitments the government has taken particularly as concerns certain vital investment that have to be made in the corporation.” Franklin Njie said.
Quizzed on how much hectares of land has been allocated for the diversification of crops he said 2,000 hectares of land have been allocated at the Pendamoko plain.
The GM explained that the year has been a challenging one despite the huge ambitions they had. We “weren’t going to meet all before the year ends. We had setbackss in area of security, when we thought that we had settled and we’re going to start operating and exploiting our plantations in Meanja and so on there were some attacks.It hit us so badly.” Franklin Njie added.
He is optimistic that the security forces have taken appropriate measures which give them confidence that come 2023 they are going to operate under better conditions.
“I strongly believe that 2023 we’ll realized our goals placed before us, they’re quite ambitious, but while we insist it’s necessary to remain ambitious it is because of the following; the potential is there, our rubber trees have latex, they’ll give us rubber if we go and tap them”.
“Our palm trees which we have done a lot of rehabilitation in 2022 they will give us fruits which we can harvest, press and get palm oil and make money so, it gives us reason to be optimistic” Franklin Njie explained.
He added that he knows the challenges will always be there, but he is optimistic that with the joint decision that will be taken by the various key stakeholders among whom they have the state, management and Board of Directors, they are definitely going to achieve their goals come 2023.