Challenged by separatist push in the southwest and northwest of its territory and the fight against Boko Haram, Cameroon’s “Defence and Security” budget has soared in recent years, reaching a peak of $397 billion in 2020.
Cameroon plans to spend FCFA 348.9 billion ($603 million) on defence and security issues in 2022. This represents 10.80% of the total budget, according to this year’s Finance Act. This is the third segment of expenditure in the sectoral distribution of the budget after all the social sectors (FCFA 1,133 billion) and productive infrastructure (FCFA 1,057 billion).
The envelope allocated to the Defence and Security sector in 2022 is up by more than FCFA 30 billion compared to last year, when it amounted to FCFA 333 billion, notes Stopblablacam. After having decreased in 2021, this envelope is therefore increasing. But it has not yet reached the volumes recorded in 2018 (370.6 billion), 2019 (385 billion) or 2020 (397.1 billion). This increase is explained by the fact that the Cameroonian army is engaged on several fronts at the same time.
In his greeting to the nation on December 31, President Paul Biya reaffirmed the firmness against the “perpetrators and sponsors” of the killings in the North-West and South-West regions plagued by irredentistry. The government will therefore continue to maintain a military presence in these two regions. An expensive war against the separatists. In August 2018, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated monthly spending on operations in English-speaking regions at more than FCFA 6 billion per month.
In addition, the army also fights the Boko Haram jihadist sect in the Far North region. The Cameroonian military is also mobilized to secure the Bakassi peninsula in the South-West region and to secure the border to the east, where the Central African rebels are swarming.
Source: Agence Ecofin/ By Michel Ange Nga
