Budgetary principles in the Cemac zone : effectiveness or efficiency

The budgetary principles in CEMAC are the rules derived from practice that member states must follow when presenting their draft budget laws. This article looks at the actual implementation of these principles and the effect of their application. Thus, an empirical link is established by means of DEA analysis between three inputs (wage bill, expenditure on goods and services, investment expenditure) and one output (gross domestic product). The analysis covered the six CEMAC countries and seven fiscal years. On the basis of the analysis, the effectiveness of budgetary principles is very relative in all CEMAC countries, not only because of the adjustments provided for by the legislator, but also because of shortcomings in the preparation and execution of the budget. In addition, the implementation of these principles is effective in three countries of the subregion: Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad. Cameroon is close to the efficiency frontier, which is not the case for the Central African Republic and Congo.