(Business in Cameroon) - In its report on the economic prospects of Sub-Saharan Africa at April 2016 ending, published this 3^rd May, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) opens a section on the impact of the terrorist threat on certain African countries. We learn that in Cameroon, even though "the threat of terrorism is concentrated in rural and poor regions", notably in the Extreme North, it has however "caused an increase in security spending, with a budgetary impact of around 1 to 2% of GDP".

To put it plainly, financing the deployment of the Cameroonian army the length of the border with Nigeria in the region of the Extreme-North for almost two years now, as well as its participation in the Multinational Mixed Force, made up of the armies of four states in the Gulf of Guinea facing attacks from the Nigerian terrorist sect Boko Haram, etc., have seriously strained the budget of the Cameroonian state.

Specifically, considering the IMF estimate mentioned above and the GDP of Cameroon, that the World Bank put at US$ 32.05 billion in 2014, thus more than FCfa 17000 billion; the war against Boko Haram has already cost between FCfa 170 and 340 billion to the Cameroonian Public Treasury.

At the least, in addition to the loss of human lives officially estimated at more than 1000 people since 2013, Boko Haram has already made the Cameroonian government spend more than the budgeted envelope of FCfa 163 billion necessary for the construction in the capital, of a 60,000-seats stadium for the matches of the 2019 AFCON.

The upper limit of the IMF estimate corresponds to more than 80% of the financing required (FCfa 400 billion) for the Cameroonian government to build, with its own resources, the Natchigal hydro-electric plant (in development in the Central Region) with a production capacity of 400 MW.

Brice R. Mbodiam