Cemac: A Budget Committee Created to Prepare for the 2027 Fiscal Year

The new technical body, structured into eight thematic working groups, is responsible for developing the Community's macroeconomic framework documents and expenditure forecasts for the 2027 period. This regulatory initiative comes as the regional administration has been partially paralyzed since February 5, 2026, due to the depletion of the community integration tax (TCI), the primary source of funding for the common treasury.

Malfunctions in the regional tax collection mechanism have accumulated massive unpaid debts, crippling the Commission's intervention capacities. The 2025 budget recapitulative balance reveals that out of an expected envelope of 51.9 billion CFA francs, the amount actually received was 31.09 billion CFA francs, corresponding to a collection rate of 59.9%. The non-payment of contributions by a majority of member states has resulted in a stock of total arrears of 263.5 billion CFA francs at the beginning of the current fiscal year. The unpaid contributions are distributed as follows: 61.8 billion CFA francs for the Central African Republic, 59.9 billion CFA francs for Cameroon, 52.2 billion CFA francs for Congo, 49.1 billion CFA francs for Chad, 34.1 billion CFA francs for Equatorial Guinea, and 6.1 billion CFA francs for Gabon.

The institution's recovery plan requires increased budget discipline to rationalize residual operating costs. The Budget Committee will need to formalize new TCI control mechanisms and audit the execution reports of previous fiscal years to restore institutional credibility with the sub-region's capitals. Working meetings will integrate external experts to validate sectoral action plans and align priority investments with available resources. Despite the precarious state of the central treasury, the President of the Commission has confirmed that the financing of the new programming entity's sessions will be fully supported by the community administration's internal lines of credit.

Nlend Flore