REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON Paix-Travail-Patrie --- SERVICES DU PREMIER MINISTRE --- SECRETARIAT GENERAL
REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON Peace-Work-Fatherland --- PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE --- SECRETARIAT GENERAL
PRESS RELEASE FOLLOWING CABINET MEETING OF THURSDAY 26 MARCH 2020
Yaounde, 26 March 2020
The Prime Minister, Head of Government, His Excellency Joseph DION NGUTE, today Thursday 26 March 2020 as from 10:00 a.m. chaired a Cabinet Meeting at the auditorium of the Prime Minister’s Office, which was attended by Ministers of State and Ministers.
Two items featured on the agenda, namely:
- Statement by the Minister of Economy, Planning and Regional Development on “general review of projects concluded as part of cooperation between china and Cameroon”.
- Updated report from the Minister of Public Health on “progress in implementing the strategy to stem the spread of the coronavirus (covid-19) in Cameroon”.
Invited to take the floor at the end of the introductory statement of the Head of Government, the Minister of Economy indicated that cooperation between Cameroon and China is old and diversified. It knew significant growth since 2007 after Cameroon attained the completion point of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC), thanks to the financing of several major projects through different channels, especially in the sectors of water, energy, roads, telecommunications, transport and higher education.
The portfolio of China-Cameroon cooperation consists of about fifteen active projects valued at about CFAF 3,300 billion, with the most outstanding being the construction of the Kribi deep-sea port, the Yaounde-Douala motorway (phase I), the supply of drinking water from the Sanaga River, the electrification of 350 localities by solar photovoltaic systems and the establishment of a national emergency telecommunications network. A recent evaluation of this portfolio revealed that the lack of maturity of some projects has often led to implementation difficulties, resulting in longer completion periods and higher costs. These difficulties are due to the delay in evacuating rights-of-way, delays in the disbursement of funds for works to start, non-compliance with certain contractual clauses and insufficient consideration of additional works required for infrastructure to be operational.
In order to correct the operational shortcomings observed in the implementation of projects under China-Cameroon cooperation, the Minister of Economy indicated that emphasis would be laid on strengthening the strategic planning and anchoring of projects in general, and those with external funding in particular. In addition, the prerequisites for the maturation of projects and their registration in the State’s project bank must also be respected for adequate budgetary programming. Furthermore, the mobilization of concessional resources offering more advantageous conditions will be favoured, as well as the use of public-private partnerships in order to reduce the pressure on the State budget.
Speaking on the second item on the agenda, the Minister of Public Health first recalled that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which strted in China at the end of December 2019, is now considered by the World Health Organization as a public health emergency at the international level.