Cameron’s Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motaze, has said the government will be diversifying its revenue sources in 2024 to reduce the country’s heavy reliance on oil revenue.
The measure comes amid a projected drop in oil prices on the international market.
Oil prices are deemed to fall from 77.98 dollars per barrel in 2023 to 68.9 dollars per barrel in 2024.
This potential drop would badly affect the Cameroon Government’s revenue in 2024, as crude oil sale remains one of the largest individual income sources for the country.
“It will be very difficult if you rely only on oil revenue,” Minister Motaze said on CRTV.
“We think that the revenue coming from the taxation department is more important than all revenues.”
According to the National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH), oil alone generated FCFA 955.5 billion to the government in 2022.
This year, oil and gas generated FCFA 351.2 billion for the state between January and June.
Diversifying the country’s revenue from oil will mean a possible increase in taxation revenue, Minister Motaze said.
He presented the country’s 2024 draft budget during a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute in Yaounde this week.
Based on the draft, the 2024 budget will witness just a slight increase.
The 2023 budget stood at FCFA 6,345.1 billion, but a presidential order of June 2 raised the budget to FCFA 6,726.9 billion.
Next year, the government will slightly increase the budget and will be tackling huge projects.
The Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, Alamine Ausmane Mey, said the government will focus on projects contained in the National Development Strategy (NDS30) 2020-2030.
It will also prioritize the reconstruction of the crisis-hit English-speaking Regions and the Far North regions.
The focus will also be on curtailing imports and empowering the local manufacturing industry as part of government’s import substitution policy.
In about two weeks, the Parliament will meet for its last ordinary session for the year.
The session will be geared at examining and voting on the 2024 budget draft budget.
At the Parliamentary session, Cabinet Ministers will be called up to defend their proposed budgets.
