Cameroon expects its 2026 budget deficit to more than double due to a sharp rise in spending aimed at supporting economic activity amid continued global instability, according to a draft finance bill presented to Parliament late on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
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Cameroon is highly exposed to external shocks, including price volatility, due to its heavy reliance on imports of fuel, wheat and automobiles.<\/p>\n
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The overall deficit is projected to be 631 billion CFA francs ($1.11 billion), up from 309.9 billion CFA francs ($545 million) in 2025, raising the government\u2019s total financing needs to 3 104.2 billion CFA francs ($5.46 billion) in 2026, compared with 2 326.5 billion CFA francs ($4.09 billion) this year.<\/p>\n
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The government has proposed a 2026 state budget of 8,816.4 billion CFA francs ($15.50 billion), up 14% from 2025, driven by higher personnel costs, goods and services, transfers and debt payments.<\/p>\n
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The draft bill is expected to pass as President Paul Biya\u2019s ruling CPDM party holds a majority in both houses of Parliament.<\/p>\n
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Economic growth is expected to improve, reaching 4.3% in 2026, up from an estimated 3.9% in 2025.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis growth would be driven primarily by the strong performance in the non-oil sector, while the oil sector is expected to contract slightly by 0.1% in 2026,\u201d a government statement said, adding that inflation would ease by 0.2% from the current 3.2%.<\/p>\n
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To cover its financing gap and other obligations, the government plans to rely on 1 000 billion CFA francs ($1.76 billion) in external borrowing, 826.7 billion CFA francs ($1.46 billion) in project loans, 589.7 billion CFA francs ($1.04 billion) in bank financing and 400 billion CFA francs ($704 million) from issuing government securities, along with budget support and exceptional financing.<\/p>\n
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Cameroon, Central Africa\u2019s largest economy with major sectors in oil and gas, cocoa and timber, has recently stepped up borrowing to plug budget shortfalls and fund infrastructure.<\/p>\n
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Over the past few years, Cameroon has suffered from liquidity problems, pushing the government to carry out structural reforms and broaden its tax base.<\/p>\n
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–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16290,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-16289","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Cameroon expects its 2026 budget deficit to more than double due to a sharp rise in spending","published_date":"2025-11-27 15:00:45","news_description":"Cameroon expects its 2026 budget deficit to more than double due to a sharp rise in spending","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20161,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16289\/revisions\/20161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=16289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}