(Business in Cameroon) - The Cameroonian public treasury will lose about XAF768 billion of revenues (taxes, customs, oil and gas, etc…) this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Ministry of Finance.

According to the same source, this drastic drop in public revenues will be partially offset by "exceptional support from development partners" in connection with the global health crisis, as well as "traditional financial support expected from the economic and financial programme" with the IMF.

These additional financial resources have "had the advantage of mitigating the decline in the budget. Thus, instead of a drop in revenue of  XAF768 billion, the budget, for its part, is finally down by only XAF542 billion," the Ministry of Finance says in an explanatory note of the Amending Finance Act decided by the Head of State on June 3, 2020, and which is to be ratified in the coming days by Parliament.

As a reminder, this budget amendment decreased the State’s 2020 budget from XAF4,951.7 billion to XAF4,409 billion. This drastic decrease is due to the consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic on the Cameroonian economy.

Due to this readjustment of the State's 2020 budget, the allocations previously made to the various administrations have been reduced by 20%, it is reported. According to the Ministry of Finance, this revised budget was drawn up on the assumption of an economic recession in Cameroon in 2020, following the Coronavirus pandemic.

While it was initially projected at 4% of GDP, economic growth in the country in 2020 will finally drop to -1.1%, according to the government, ( and -1.2% according to the IMF). This represents a net loss of 5 percentage points, according to the new government projections.

Brice R. Mbodiam