(Business in Cameroon) - In 2020, Cameroon recovered XAF12.2 billion of salaries paid into deceased civil servants’ accounts from the banks and microfinance institutions that were in charge of wiring them. This was revealed by the directorate general of the treasury, which informs that the funds were recovered in the framework of the state payroll consolidation operation initiated in 2018.

The XAF12.2 billion recovered represent only 42.6% of the amount to be recovered by the state in that segment (the salaries the financial institutions wired into deceased civil servants’ accounts).  Indeed, in late January 2020, during the annual conference of the various departments housed at the Ministry of Finance, Gilbert Didier Edoa (secretary-general of the Ministry of Finance) revealed that thanks to an audit of deceased civil servants’ accounts, the government found out that XAF21.8 billion had been wired into those accounts after the death of those servants.  

According to sources at the directorate general, the recovery operations will continue during the 2021 fiscal year.

Let’s note that in 2019, in the framework of the state payroll consolidation program, the government identified and suppressed 10,000 fictitious civil servants from its payroll. With this suppression, the country is now saving about XAF30 billion of salary expenditures annually.

At the time the consolidation program was initiated, the country’s yearly salary expenditure was close to XAF1000 billion for about 310,000 civil servants. Thanks to the physical counting operation launched in 2018 (in the framework of the consolidation program), the government identified and removed civil servants who either were dead but unreported, had resigned, or were absent from the workplace without providing required justifications.  

Still, in the framework of the state payroll consolidation program, an operation was initiated to consolidate the retired and pensioners' payroll. Thanks to that operation, the country is now saving XAF10 billion annually, the directorate general of the treasury adds.

Sylvain Andzongo