By Doh James Sonkey
The 2025 Finance Bill of the Republic of Cameroon balanced in income and expenditure to the tune of FCFA 7317.7 billion has been tabled at the National Assembly. The Bill was deemed admissible by the Chairmen’s conference chaired last Sunday December 1, 2024. The Finance Bill will be defended by all cabinet Ministers in the presence of Finance Minister, Louis Paul Motaze, in the Finance and Budget Committee of the Lower House of Cameroon Parliament, headed by Hon Moutymbo Rosette Julienne epouse Ayayi. The 2025 Finance Bill is witnessing an increase in absolute terms of FCFA 39.6 billion and 0.5 percent in relative terms as compared to last year’s State Budget which stood at FCFA 7 278.1 billion.
The main innovation in the 2025 Finance Bill concerns continued efforts to trim the common heads as prescribed by the President of the Republic, H.E Paul Biya. There will be further moves to curb fuel pump price subsidies to drop from FCFA 263 billion in 2024 to FCFA 15 billion in 2025.
The General Budget is projected at FCFA 7 250.8 billion while that of Special Appropriation Accounts is projected at FCFA 66.9 billion.
For the 2025 Finance Year, the public investment budget amounts to FCFA 1 863.1 billion compared to FCFA 1 604.1 billion in 2024, that is an increase of FCFA 259.0 billion in absolute terms and 16.1 percent in relative terms. Public Investment Budget thus accounts for 33.5 percent of total budget expenditures in 2025.
The financing gap for 2025 amounts to FCFA 1 795 billion compared to FCFA 2 070.1 billion in 2024 thereby witnessing a decrease of FCFA 275.1 billion. And to fill the gap, government will have to resort to the usual financial instruments namely; [i] external drawing on project loans [840 billion], [ii] issuance of government bonds [380 billion], [iii] bank financing [220.6 billion], [iv] budget support under the Economic and Financial Programme [165 billion] and [v] exceptional financing [189.4 billion].