Finance Ordinance and three other bills were introduced in the plenary session.

Four bills have been tabled at the Lower House of Parliament in a plenary session chaired by House Speaker Honourable Cavaye Yeguie Djibril on June 10, 2021.
The bill seeks to ratify Ordinance No. 2021/2 of May 26, 2021, amending and supplementing some provisions of Law No. 2020/18 of December 17, 2020: The Finance Law of the Republic of Cameroon for the fiscal year 2021.

The ordinance primarily seeks to increase the State Budget’s non-concessional loan ceiling from CFAF 300 billion to CFAF 750 billion.
It also authorizes the government to issue bonds on the international market for a total of CFAF 450 billion in order to partially or completely redeem the current Euro jump.

Cameroon, which had made a guarantee and ring-fencing arrangement consisting of a monthly provision of CFAF15 billion in an escrow account as repayment of the 2015 Eurobond, is experiencing cash-flow difficulties, owing primarily to the COVID-19-related health crisis and the volatile economic situation in terms of revenue.

The planned redemption operation aims to increase our fiscal space by debt re-filing. The bill to authorize the President of the Republic to ratify the Cooperation Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Cameroon and the Swiss Federal Council on the reciprocal abolition of the visa requirement for holders of diplomatic or service passports, signed in Yaounde on September 26, 2014, was also tabled.

This bill seeks to authorize the President of the Republic to ratify the Agreement signed in Yaounde on September 26, 2014, between the Government of the Republic of Cameroon and the Swiss Federal Council on the reciprocal abolition of the visa requirement for holders of diplomatic or service passports.

Cameroon and Switzerland decided to sign the Agreement to allow their nationals, holders of diplomatic or service passports, to enter and leave the territory of either State without major difficulties in order to strengthen their friendship and solidarity ties.

The Bill authorizing the President of the Republic to ratify the Stepping Stone Agreement toward a Bilateral Economic Partnership Agreement between the Republic of Cameroon and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was also introduced in parliament.

This bill seeks to authorize the President of the Republic to ratify the Stepping Stone Agreement between Cameroon and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in preparation for a Bilateral Economic Partnership Agreement.

It should be noted that, following the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s (BREXIT) exit from the European Union, Cameroon entered into negotiations with this friendly country in the hope of signing a new Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

The last bill tabled in the National Assembly on Thursday was the Bill to govern access to genetic resources, their derivatives, traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their use.

This bill establishes the overall legal framework for protecting and developing national genetic resources, thereby making them a major lever for development and the fair and equitable distribution of financial benefits derived from their use.

The bill, which is part of Cameroon’s implementation of the Nagoya Protocol, to which it acceded in 2016, aims to promote the development of genetic resources and the traditional knowledge associated with them in order to encourage their conservation and sustainable use. Access to genetic resources, their derivatives, and/or associated traditional knowledge should also be regulated.