This slowdown in the growth of the securities stock, following the spectacular surges of previous fiscal years, is no mere conjunctural coincidence. It reflects the necessary deceleration of a borrowing race, in a sub-regional context where our country ranks third behind Gabon and the Congo, absorbing nearly one-fifth of the securities in circulation within the Cemac zone.


Submitting to interest rate pressure without questioning the structure of our repayments and the distribution of maturities would be a major strategic error. If the average costs of bonds and Treasury bills show a welcome decline year-on-year (bringing the OTA down to 7.36%), they remain infinitely higher than the standards of the prosperous years of the previous decade, when money was markedly less burdensome. The predominance of bonds, which account for more than two-thirds of Cameroon's outstanding debt, combined with a strong domestic anchoring where 83% of securities are held locally by investors and Treasury specialists, proves that the State seeks to pledge its signature over the long term. But it also reminds us that the domestic market bears the bulk of the burden on our treasury, sometimes nearing the saturation of local placement capacities.


Believing that continuous recourse to the BEAC money market or the BVMAC windows constitutes an infinite solution without productive counterpart is a dangerous political illusion. Each additional fundraising weighs down debt service and compresses the budgetary margins indispensable for financing basic infrastructure and supporting industrialization. The volume of mobilized capital must imperatively find its profitability in the creation of real wealth and the amplification of import substitution, and not in the mere refinancing of past debts destined to plug the holes of current treasury.


Avoiding the trap of financial asphyxia demands from public authority an implacable rigor in the allocation of raised resources and an irreproachable discipline in disbursement. It is now appropriate to lengthen maturities while compressing borrowing costs through the credibility of structural reforms. To preserve its economic sovereignty, Cameroon must transform these capital-raising instruments into genuine levers of sustainable productive investment, ensuring that every billion borrowed becomes the foundation of an autonomous, dignified, and sovereign prosperity.



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EWC, DP

Tags: souveraineté économique cameroun marché financier dette publique obligations du trésor zone cemac beac bvmac service de la dette investissement productif