Commentary: Keeping Growth Objectives After All!

The country has outlined growth objectives which must be pursued after all. The pandemic, like other global crisis, is not only affecting Cameroon. There will therefore be no justification for any failure should the national economy be left to shrink.

Visibly, the Covid-19 pandemic, like other viruses, may not be exterminated tomorrow. People are increasingly learning to live with it, so should the economy. Ensuring that the economy remains competitive amidst the Coronavirus pandemic is a daunting task; no doubt, but which should and must be tackled wholly by all and sundry. Only such a courageous action can ascertain live and livelihood during and after the pandemic.

President Paul Biya in his end-of-year address to the nation on December 31, 2021 said even in the state at which the country has been subjected to, there is every reason to strive to create conditions for more robust, sustainable, inclusive and employment-generating growth, particularly for youths who are and will remain the primary beneficiaries of ongoing reforms.

The country therefore needs to pursue her growth objectives irrespective of the challenging moments. A development blueprint; the 2020-2030 National Development Strategy, already exists and should be methodically pursued to produce desired results in the short, medium and long terms. The present scenario can be likened to a foggy weather that should not veil any forward-looking economy. For, when the skies would be clear, those who kept their growth objectives intact and worked for their materialisation would have gone far. There is thus no room for procrastination as time waits for no one and challenges will never leave everyone.

Cameroon’s development objective of ensuring a structural adjustment of its economy must be made to move from the papers in which they were crafted and the drawers where they are kept. The country needs to move into a productive economy and sectors susceptible to catalysing real progress; call them, growth-induced sectors, prioritised to pull others towards the much-cherished emergence. Strategies spelt out in the 2020-2030 growth blueprint should be followed and readjusted where and when need be to suit the challenges of the time.

The vision to boost industrial activities, embrace more favourable conditions for economic growth and improved living conditions for the populat...