The ninth annual report of the Audit Bench renders account of the activities of the Cameroon financial year. The preceding reports prepared in accordance with the provisions of the section 3 of law NO.2003/005 to law down jurisdiction, organization and functioning. The Audit Bench shall submit to the president of the Republic, president of the National Assembly and the president of Senate. It is aimed at setting out the general results of deliberations and observation with a view to reform and improve upon the keeping accounts and discipline of accountants.
The audit bench is composed of 4 parts: Management activities of the audit bench, Execution of missions of the audit bench in 2014, Decisions of the audit bench 2014 and Recommendations of the audit bench 2014.
The first part which deals with the Management Activities of the Audit Bench. These activities deal with the management of human, financial and material resources which the Audit Bench had in 2014.
The first section is the management of human resources, by the 31th of December 2014, the staff number stood at 164.The major factors here remains on the reduction of the number of audit assistance from 65 in 2013 to 54 in2014 as a result of the departure of eleven members of the staff .It included the legal and judicial officers, registry staff, audit assistance and support staff.
Financial resources which is second section deals with the financing of the activities here the audit bench benefits from annual budgetary allocations and support from the Ministry of Finance.
The third section deals with the material resources here we see the Audit Bench provided with vehicles.The audit bench was enriched with two new vehicles in 2014 and a pickup with a liaison vehicle.
In 2014 the staff members of the audit bench benefited from capacity building activities carried out internally through workshops and externally through a training seminar on the one hand and the study and exchange missions abroad on the other hand.
The internal workshop
two workshops were organized for the staff of the financial jurisdiction in 2014. Firstly the training workshop on management control and evaluation of public policies which was organized from the 21 to 25 April 2014. In view to this, the new legal framework of public finance resulting from the Fiscal Regime of the state workshop was facilitated by judges of the Supreme Court and officials of the Audit Bench of Cameroon. It was centered on the general methodology of control, points of method on the examination, evaluation of public policies. Secondly, the training workshop on judicial control based on the concept of damage. This refers to the presumed liability of the Public Account which is based on objective control of the balance of account. The public accountant is henceforth under the regime of liability for fault who takes account of both the circumstances of the fault and the amount of the damage caused to the public entity concerned. It was held from the 21 to 27 May 2014 at the Mont Fébé Hotel in Yaoundé and dwelled on the identification and determination of financial damage, the circumstances of the realization of the damage and the resulting sanction. Thirdly, the training seminars for secretaries and executive assistance, on the 25 of April, in which four secretaries of the Financial jurisdiction took part. We also see the supervision of the ENAM students who receive within the framework of academic internship.
The international cooperation
During the 2014 financial year, two study trips were undertaken to Algeria and Morocco. In Algeria, exchanges between the delegation and officials of the Supreme Court were on the presentation of the jurisdiction. The members of the Cameroon delegation were enriched through the contact with staff of Algeria which exercises mainly on full financial jurisdiction that is judgment of accounts. In Morocco, the capacity of the Audit Bench staff was based on issues of control technics and methodologies.
THE EXECUTION OF THE MISSION OF THE AUDIT BENCH IN 2014
In 2014, just like the preceding year, the Audit Bench performed its judicial and extra judicial missions. It renders account of the decisions taken by the jurisdiction within the context of its mission.
The judicial mission;
The judicial mission is made up of the production of accounts , examination of accounts and the types of irregularities discovered during examination of the account .With regard to the production of account and contrary to the situation presented in the annual reports of the previous financial year, the report of 2014 gives information concerning both the production of accounts of 2013 expected in 2014.The examination of accounts on its side, it is observed that the Audit Bench produced 230 examination reports in 2014 against 266 in 2013 that is a drop of 5.66 percent . The type of irregularities discovered during examination of accounts, as to what concerns it discoveries were made on figures and documents of public accountants which concern the absence of minutes of integration of inactive assets , infidelity in the sequencing of balance, absence of a statement of banking concordance and its annexes .
The extra judicial missions
This includes Administrative controls, counsel and assistance to public authorities. The administrative controls relates to the accounts of public and semipublic enterprises. it is made up of financial statements which according to article 8 of the OHADA Act on the organization and harmonization of accounting of enterprises should comprise of a balance sheet, income statement , financial table of resources . The public and semipublic enterprises are bound to forward their financial statement to the Audit bench before the 30 September of the year that follows. Concerning the administrative controls, the Audit Bench produced 13 observation reports including 8 interim reports and 5 final observation reports.
THE DECISIONS OF THE AUDIT BENCH 2014
This third part of the report is devoted to the publication of some final rulings of the Audit Bench in 2014. It concerns the judgments of final observation reports, opinion and certification reports.
The 2014 report published the summary of a debit balance ruling, two rulings on the appeal for review of judgment of the Audit Bench and a discharge ruling .The rulings on the application for review relate to two appeals of final judgment by the Audit Bench which were considered inadmissible. As for the discharge ruling, it was made on the basis of the authority of judicata. The final observation is made up of two which are inserted in the 2014 annual report. We have the final observation report on MAETUR and the final observation on SIC.
The opinions, reports and acts of certificate
Here we see opinions on the settlement bill for the 2013 financial year. The Audit Bench in accordance with section 39 c of law N0. 2006/016 of the 29 December 2006 laid down the organization and functioning of the Supreme Court gave its opinion on the settlement bill for the 2013 financial year as the previous four years. The certification report of the general account of the state as noted in the 2013 annual report was prepared on an experimental base as recognized by the Minister of Finance, the similarity that was observed based on the certification report of the 2013 financial year and that of the preceding year indicates a little progress .
THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE AUDIT BENCH
The 2014 annual report shows the previous recommendations implemented, renew those that have not known a start in implementation before making new recommendations.
Firstly, we have previous recommendations implemented in 2014; the Minister of Finance set up working groups to make proposals on the correction of irregularities found by the Audit Bench in the management of accounts and in response to recommendation by which the financial jurisdiction asked him to decide on the presentation format and to always specify the allocation of surplus revenue. Also, we have a previous recommendation not implemented which was identified in the 2014 annual report.
New recommendations
the 2014 annual report brought in 5 new recommendation based on the general account of the State to ask for the acceleration of the implementation of all aspects of accounting in view of 2019, the expenditure on cash advance to request the establishment of subsidiary ledgers, the asymmetrical responsibility of budget execution actors which requested the transfer of competence of the accounting officer prescribed by article 29 1 AND 2 of decree N0. 2013/160 on the general rules governing public account, lack of service number in the appointment instrument to apply for automatic inscription to facilitate the identification of those involved in the decisions of the Financial jurisdiction, accounting deficit which appears from the examination of management accounts produced by public accountants of the state reported that deficits of public accountants are not always accompanied by the minutes of detection of the deficit signed by the authors of deficit.
In conclusion it can be understood that the presentation of the Audit Bench of the Supreme Court concerned with annual reports is paradoxical. On one side, we see the weak outcomes of the judicial controls which are the essence of missions assigned to the Financial jurisdiction on the other hand the regular performance of the counsel and assistance mission to executive and legislative authorities as well as public structures and entities.
It equally called for an increase in the number of judges by assigning the first account judge trained at the National School of Administration And Magistracy (ENAM) and through external recruitment of highly qualified senior staff from other administrations.
Audrey Nadine JIKI
