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00:00Hello, this is House Connect, your insight into parliamentary activities.
00:29In less than a fourth night, the third ordinary session of the 2024 legislative year will be kicking off in Parliament.
00:37Two bureau orders, first signed by the House Speaker, the Right Honourable Kavya Kichibu and the Senior Vice-President of the Senate,
00:46Abubakari Abdullahi, convene the seating for November 12th.
00:50This is after consultations with the President of the Republic, His Excellency Paul Biya.
00:56It is definitely going to be intense moments during the November session,
01:00largely dedicated to the tabling, scrutiny and adoption of the 2025 state budgets.
01:07But what are the orientations of the economic and financial policy?
01:12House Connect today will be focusing on the priorities.
01:16We shall equally be zeroing in on the activities of lawmakers in their constituencies.
01:22Don't go away. We'll be right back in a moment.
01:27The Presidential Circular concerning the preparation of the state budgets of the 2025 financial year has been signed by the President of the Republic, His Excellency Paul Biya.
01:41It defines the macroeconomic context of the states and falls in line with the implementation of the 2020-2030 National Development Strategy.
01:53What are the tenets of the circular and what are the priority programs of the states?
01:58It's a much deal on House Connect.
02:01Amongst the economic indicators to watch out for in 2025, inflation will be a major concern for the government.
02:08A general increase in prices without an added value on the purchasing power of consumers automatically translates into rising cost of living,
02:16which of course puts pressure on spending.
02:18With inflation projected to 4.0% and overall growth expected to hit 4.4% in 2025,
02:26the domestic public policy focus will center around keeping inhabitants, businesses and the public treasury comfortable.
02:34While preparing the 2025 state budget, therefore, measures to promote industrial transformation will be a priority.
02:41But then, achieving this goal calls for a governance yardstick which will measure transparency, public spending and a fight against corruption, amongst other issues.
02:51Trust between taxpayers and investors will also be necessary in order to improve doing business, up revenue mobilization, but equally guarantee tax compliance.
03:00However, strategic investment is put forward as an argument which will contribute to keep the National Debt Strategy prudent.
03:08This cannot disregard global economics which remains trapped in difficult recovery with an impact on trade,
03:14a trend which may stay this way as long as geopolitical tensions persist.
03:19The 2025 budgetary guidelines will therefore be implemented bearing in mind that the domestic budget has to be executed with improved living conditions as the main objective.
03:30The budgetary orientation debate is a forum which provides governments an opportunity to unveil its economic growth plans
03:44and also gives a chance to lawmakers who represent the people to say what the needs of the people are as well as identify some of the funding options.
03:56This comes before the final drafting of the state budget which is naturally presented in the course of the November session.
04:04The debates during committee meetings as well as plenaries as far as the tailoring of the state budget is concerned is our focus on House Connect today.
04:16The government had met earlier in an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the socio-political temperature in the country,
04:26particularly the electoral calendar new timeline, before the finance minister Louis Paul Motaze entered parliament to attend the budgetary orientation debate.
04:38Because of the transparency that we are looking for, the head of state has decided that since there are some changes that occurred in the running of the budget,
04:50those innovations should be put in the budget. This is why he signed this ordinance.
04:58The first thing we have to say is that there is a slight increase in the budget. We are now more than 7,000 billion CFA francs.
05:11Chaired by the Deputy House Speaker Honorable Theophile Bauru, the plenary centered on the examination of the June ordinance by the President of the Republic
05:21to amend and supplement certain provisions of the 2024 Finance Bill which has increased the state budget from 6,000 plus to 7,000 plus billion CFA francs.
05:34As far as the resources are concerned, we have gained more resources. If you take the example of the taxation, the customs, and what we earn from our cooperation with our partners.
05:47In fact, there are some other resources that decreases. All what is relied to the oil sector, we have a slight decrease.
06:00According to the report of the Finance and Budget Committee of the National Assembly, the ordinance met the constitutional benchmarks and was elaborated on the basis of the draft medium economic and budgetary outline of the state for the next three years, 2025-2027.
06:20At the end of the day, the most important thing is that we have a budget that has increased.
06:27The report presentation done by the reporter of the Finance and Budget Committee of the National Assembly with the context of the ordinance explained lawmakers mounted the rostrum one after another to express their preoccupations.
06:43Chapter 3, section 39B, page 5 of the ordinance states that tax remuneration from the issuance of identification documents and passports shall be distributed as follows.
07:01Tax revenue from identification documents. First dash for stamp duties on national identity card. Ministry, that is the contracting authority, 10%. Service provider, 90%. This is where I am at a loss.
07:22Of the eight lawmakers who asked 13 questions to the Finance Minister, Louis Paul Motaze, most of their worries were on the issuance of the national identity card.
07:34Then when we talk, talk, talk, you go back. Are you, how are you going to execute this project?
07:39Considered one of the tiniest features of the ordinance, they qualified it as excessive. The cost of the new national identity card system.
07:50This is what touches our population. We are elected by a people and we must be here to defend the interests of our people. That issue of the ID cards.
07:58According to the Finance Minister, Louis Paul Motaze, the state had mastered the budgetary equilibrium before putting the unit cost of the new national identity card at 10,000 francs CFA, up from 2,800 francs previously.
08:15Beyond the national identity card, other elements are taken into account and paid. All this will be in a one-stop shop. All will be paid at once.
08:37The member of government also indicated that since it is a public-private partnership business, the state bears no cost on the entire process.
08:46We are in a public-private partnership. It is the service provider who bears the entire cost and subsequently pays. The state pays nothing. Some revenues are lost, but some charges too are free.
09:10Under security guarantees for the safety of the data of the Cameroonian people, the Finance Minister, Louis Paul Motaze, reiterated that the National Police Department and related services have handled that diligently and so there are no worries to be expressed.
09:30The national identity card, like the passport, are extremely very important documents. Like the currency, very important. And we must avoid clandestine production.
09:52The parliamentarians also wanted to understand why first the search in the credit lines for crisis-hit areas like the far north, the northwest and southwest regions of the country, when the money first allocated, has not been accounted for.
10:08How do we mobilize domestic financing in order to be able to meet up with the exigencies of the demands of our people?
10:20Another concern for the lawmakers was on the decentralization process and the transfer of financial resources to make the local governments more autonomous.
10:30I believe honestly that the Cameroon of 1960 is not the Cameroon of 2024.
10:40As enshrined in the National Development Strategy 2030, the government claimed the increase in the investment portfolio of the current finance bill is to ease the realization of economic transformational projects like in the energy sector.
10:56The Nashtigal, for example, wrote construction Marwada Banga to be cited and the digital sectors.
11:03The state encourages the private sector in the digital world. You know, the case of the cardiopath with a young Cameroonian.
11:19There are others too, with startups who met me recently with an application called Easy Learning for distance education, all are Cameroonians.
11:35After more than three hours of deliberation, the ordinance to amend and supplement certain provisions of the 2024 finance bill was adopted and promulgated into law by the President of the Republic days after.
11:50One of the major roles of parliaments is to control government action and public spending.
12:01Government oversight is essential in the promotion of nation building and for economic growth.
12:08In the course of the program today, we shall be giving you a plethora of preoccupations of the lawmakers at the Senate and at the National Assembly and the responses of the executive.
12:19In the course of plenary sittings, a key role of parliamentarians is to control government action and question time, which gives the people's representatives the right to probe into the running of the states is of the essence.
12:35In proceedings led by the right honorable cover, you could you brew the story states of Cameroon's road network is under sharp scrutiny in the northwest and southwest regions.
12:46Many contracts have been given by your ministry for a construction of roads.
12:51But given the insecurity in the northwest and southwest region, many of these contracts have not been.
12:59They have been very it has been very difficult for the contractors to do the work.
13:04What measures have been put in place by your ministry to ensure that security is guaranteed to the contractors to effectively do the work?
13:17Conscious of the challenge to ensure the construction of roads in crisis stricken regions, government reacts.
13:25The government has set up a safety support system.
13:29They call it the safety support system to accompany all road projects being implemented in southwest, in northwest and in the far north region.
13:43The safety support system is being implemented on the Babadjou-Bamenda route and on the road under construction.
13:51Now, this section on which works are going on very smartly.
13:58One can realize that we have completed already some section of the Babadjou-Bamenda section.
14:05The management of grants and financial supports to private institutions and the need for a systematic audit requested is clarified.
14:14The financial resources of a private school or teacher training college come, among other things, from any support provided by the state.
14:24The aim being to ensure that all young people, whether in public or private schools, enjoy the same education and training conditions.
14:38Despite a difficult economic background, the state of Cameroon has always fulfilled this mission.
14:46The amount of this allocation has been stabilized at 2.5 billion over the last five years.
14:56Sanctions are regularly meted out to all private institutions found to have misused these financial resources.
15:08At the Senate, in a plenary sitting, presided over by Presidents Maksel Nyanjifengi, the hold in PhD programs in institutions of higher learning is queried.
15:19It is an established fact now that the PhD program has been suspended in all state universities in the country.
15:30Is this suspension suggesting that the quality of the PhD our universities are producing now is falling as has been insinuated in many quarters?
15:46Some indications seem to agree that there is increasingly falling standards in the PhD programs.
15:54The rationale of the suspension and the doctoral program of the state, plus the perception of quality and innovation, are highlighted.
16:03On the suspension of PhD and doctoral programs, the reason is simple.
16:11It was necessary for us to have a clear appraisal of the situation.
16:18This cannot be an indication that our doctoral training programs are mediocre.
16:29Anyone can verify that the quality of our training programs, via the performance of our projects in and out of the country,
16:44I have written to the hierarchy for the suspension to be lifted.
16:52Expected to evaluate the implementation of structural projects in line with the National Development Strategy, the approach is spelled out.
17:02The implementation of Vision 2035 has enabled our country to embark on a vast investment program,
17:12requiring the mobilization of significant resources for the implementation of major first-generation projects,
17:20which are currently being commissioned, and second-generation projects, some of which are in the startup phase.
17:28The African Development Bank regularly measures the African Infrastructure Development Index.
17:36This is a composite index that measures the state of infrastructure in the following areas,
17:42electricity, transport, information and communication technologies, water and sanitation.
17:50Cameroon is improving on its port facilities, accelerating the commissioning of energy production plants,
17:57and is committed to allocate additional resources for rehabilitation and maintenance works.
18:06Legislators have been aiding their constituents to fight against hardship and to roll back poverty.
18:15They've been on the field to provide assistance in the education, health and agriculture sector.
18:21The details of the activities is on networking.
18:25The floods in the Logan and Shari Division of the Far North Region have been devastating,
18:32with thousands of persons displaced and schools in all the ten subdivisions badly hit.
18:38To alleviate the plight of school-going children, the elite have synergized efforts
18:44to provide didactic material and basic school needs to the affected.
18:50There are so many flooding in all the ten subdivisions of the Gwane Shari.
18:57We have our children that has to be educated now, even in that very difficult period.
19:04That's the reason why we have decided to bring our contribution, our help,
19:10in such a way that our kids will continue to be educated because they are the member of the future of the nation.
19:19This adds up to the humanitarian assistance of the presidential couple,
19:24as the authorities remain on the alert to apply pre-emptive measures
19:30and to ensure that no child is deprived of education because of the crisis.
19:36This is the second anniversary of President Paul Beers' accession to power.
19:44The supporters of the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement, CPDM,
19:49elated to have their national chairman back in the country, pledge unflinching support to his ideals.
19:57Our president is back. We have seen him. We have welcomed him.
20:04And especially the Kunki community, the mobilization to be sure that the success of this anniversary,
20:15that Kunki will realize 100%.
20:21The rallying of grassroots sympathizers in the Ntembe Valley for a hitch-free and befitting November 6 celebration
20:29was equally a worthwhile initiative.
20:32With over 5,000 newly registered voters on electoral lists in the area,
20:38the party bigwigs are contented with the results.
20:42We are satisfied with the work done on the field by the party's grassroots leaders to register voters.
20:51We want to reassure everyone that CPDM is doing well in Ntembe Valley.
21:01In the northwest region, lawmakers from the Senate and the National Assembly
21:07joined the over 3,000 spectators at the Bamenda Hub station
21:12to watch the screening of the film documentary titled
21:21The one-hour, 30-minute production on his life and achievements gave the legislators a chance to call for unity.
21:29Our strength comes as we work together, we are united.
21:34Our differences make us stronger.
21:36The one and indivisible nature of the state continues to be celebrated in the nooks and crannies of the country
21:44with philanthropic gestures to vulnerable groups and the underprivileged.
21:55And that will be all for this edition of House Connect,
21:58which focused on the budgetary orientation debates
22:01and the circular on the preparation of the state budget of the 2025 financial year
22:08signed by the President of the Republic, His Excellency Paul Biya.
22:12We also had a focus on the activities of the lawmakers impacting the lives of their constituents.
22:19Till the fourth night when we meet again,
22:21parliaments would have opened for the third ordinary session of the 2024 legislative year.
22:27So then, on behalf of the entire production team of House Connect, it is goodbye.