Cameroon’s audit chamber exposes vast untraceable public subsidies

Public financial accountability in Cameroon faces persistent challenges due to pervasive opacity. For the 2024 fiscal year, the Supreme Court’s Audit Chamber could only track a mere 3% of the total public subsidies disbursed by the state to its various enterprises. This striking figure, unveiled in its report on the execution of the finance law, underscores the significant information gap hindering Cameroonian financial oversight in its critical certification duties.

Report highlights public fund traceability issues

The financial oversight body, tasked with the judicial control of state and public institution accounts, relies heavily on supporting documentation provided by authorizing officers and beneficiary entities. However, regarding the substantial financial assistance allocated to Cameroon’s public sector in 2024, only a minuscule fraction could be definitively linked to a specific recipient with documented expenditure. Effectively, the remaining 97% falls outside the scope of verification for financial magistrates.

This statistic is far from trivial; it points to a core structural governance challenge: the state’s fundamental ability to monitor the utilization of resources transferred to its various branches. State-owned companies, public administrative establishments, and entities with majority or strategic state participation regularly receive substantial financial packages, often categorized as balancing subsidies, investment grants, or tariff compensations.

Public enterprise portfolio under fiscal pressure

Cameroon’s extensive parastatal sector encompasses dozens of enterprises operating in crucial strategic areas, including energy, hydrocarbons, transportation, telecommunications, agro-industry, and water. Many of these entities are structurally reliant on state financial backing to sustain their daily operations or meet their financial obligations. Notable examples include the Société nationale des hydrocarbures (SNH), Camair-Co, and Sonara, all of which frequently require high-level state intervention due to their persistent financial struggles.

Amidst tightening public finances, characterized by the imperative to keep the budget deficit below thresholds agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under its ongoing program, effective control over subsidy channels has become a critical public policy objective. The economic and financial program supported by Washington explicitly stresses the importance of transparent financial flows between the Treasury and public entities, deeming it essential for credibly managing the nation’s fiscal consolidation path.

This finding from the Audit Chamber emerges despite Yaoundé’s prior commitments, as part of its public finance management reforms, to enhance the reporting of accounting information from state-owned enterprises. The establishment of a dedicated directorate within the Ministry of Finance in 2017, specifically for monitoring the state’s portfolio, was intended to bolster this oversight. However, tangible improvements have yet to materialize.

A challenge to budgetary sovereignty

Beyond mere accounting practices, the inability to properly document the destination and actual utilization of nearly all public subsidies undermines several strategic initiatives. This lack of transparency restricts the scope of parliamentary debate on budget settlement laws, curtails the Supreme Court’s crucial oversight role, and deprives multilateral donors, notably the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB), of reliable data essential for tailoring their budgetary support.

For private investors, particularly those involved in public-private partnerships or concession contracts with Cameroonian public entities, this pervasive opacity introduces an additional layer of risk. The strength of sovereign creditworthiness is also gauged by the robustness of internal controls over budgetary transfers. By publicly releasing these findings, the Audit Chamber effectively performs its sentinel role, issuing a clear demand for greater compliance.

The message delivered to the executive branch is unambiguous: without significant improvements in information reporting, the certification of state accounts will remain incomplete. In practical terms, this necessitates the widespread adoption of a standardized accounting framework for public enterprises, the enhancement of budgetary information system reliability, and the consistent enforcement of penalties against non-compliant managers.