Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa, the Minister of Basic Education, called on state personnel serving in other administrations and who are included in the budget of his institution, to justify their current administrative position.
Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa gives them until March 15 to do so. “Those who do not subscribe to this approach will see their balances suspended from the budgetary chapter of their institution,” he warns in a press release signed on March 1. The government member explains that this action aims to “clean up” the personnel balance file of his ministerial department. This decision is in fact part of the desire of the Minister of Basic Education to have clarity on the situation of these personnel. Because the President of the Republic once again called on the government to rationalize public spending in his end-of-year speech to the nation on December 31. And the State payroll remains one of the priority issues of this objective prescribed by the Head of State.
As of June 30, 2023, the total number of public employees in the State balance file stood at 379,020 for active workers (all bodies combined) and 157,717 pensioners, we can read in the 2024 Finance Law. According to the document, the Ministry of Secondary Education has the largest workforce with 26.1% of all state public employees, followed by the Ministry of Defense (17.9%) and the Ministry of Basic Education. (14.7%). This last ministerial department represents 16.25% of the weight of the State payroll, we learn.
Since 2018, the government has implemented various initiatives to uncover irregularities and salaries unduly received by public officials. This, with the aim of controlling staff numbers and payroll. To this end, an interministerial committee was set up with the aim of ensuring the continuity of the process of cleaning up the State balance file. This process aims to update the said file so that only regularly recruited public officials, placed in their appropriate administrative and salary situations, appear. According to the Ministry of Finance, the physical counting operation of state personnel carried out between April and June 2018 made it possible to flush out more than 10,000 fictitious civil servants who cost Cameroon 30 billion FCFA per year.