A two-week inter-ministerial retreat to discuss the programmes ended on July 29.

Secretaries General and other top-ranking officials of government ministries and other institutions in charge of the State budget have fine-tuned strategies through which projects of the 2014 State budget will be prepared and presented to meet the objectives of the results-based three-year programme budget which went underway on January 1, 2013.

A two-week inter-ministerial conclave to examine projects of the various ministries and institutions with the view of harmonising them ahead of budgetary conference billed for the weeks ahead ended in Yaounde yesterday July 29. The just-ended Yaounde conclave sought to fine-tune the quality of programmes and projects to be submitted to the Upper and Lower Houses of the National Assembly.

Focus was on the coherence of the programmes vis-à-vis government's short and long-term development vision. It was also an opportunity to evaluate the path covered by the different ministries and institutions in the execution of the budget, the system of information on their performance, the style of formulating programmes, its strategies, results chain and responsibilities.

Sources said the session also served as an opportunity for various vote holders to present their projects, get orientations on what needs to be altered for harmony to prevail and then prepare better programmes and projects for the budgetary conference. The announced conference will look at the projects presented and in line with the envelop for 2014 allocate amounts to the various projects.

Chairing the closing ceremony in the company of the Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi, Finance Minister, Alamine Ousmane Mey, described the just-ended session as a stitch in time. "We had the opportunity to review the execution of the budget for the first half of the year. We reviewed what our strong and weak points were and sought ways of addressing these weaknesses in such a way that by the end of the year, our execution level is satisfactory given that mid year we are far below 50 per cent," he said.

The Minister like other participants prayed for concerted efforts to boost investment. "We will take the remaining part of the year to speed up investment so that even if at the end we do not have perfect results, what we would have should be satisfactory. We want to make sure that the shortcomings of 2013 are forgotten and that at the start of 2014, we start executing the budget," Minister Alamine Ousmane Mey pledged.