Abidjan- The deputies members of the Economic and Financial Affairs Committee (CAEF) of the National Assembly approved Tuesday the budget appropriations for the year 2020 of 11 ministries in the amount of 1368.519 FCFA.

The first wave of ministers under the chapter "public authorities, sovereignty and governance" concerned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a budget of 96.857 billion CFA francs presented by the Minister to the Prime Minister in charge of the Budget and the State Portfolio Moussa Sanogo, in the absence of his colleague on mission.

The credits allocated to the Ministry of African Integration and Ivorians Abroad, presented by Ally Coulibaly, are estimated at 2.63 billion CFA francs and those of the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, defended by Sidiki Diakité, at 326.779 billion CFA francs. The overall amounts for this first wave amount to more than 426.272 billion CFA francs.

The second cohort, under the chapter "Defense and Security", composed of the Ministry of Security and Civil Protection with a budget of 165.364 billion CFA francs and the Ministry of Defense (349 billion CFA francs), has an overall budget of 514.364 billion CFA francs. The budgets of these two ministries presented by the Minister in charge of the Budget and the State Portfolio, Moussa Sanogo in the absence of the incumbent Vagondo Diomandé and Hamed Bakayoko has sparked debates around the issues of fight against racketeering, organized crime, terrorism, reorganization of the army, etc. After satisfactory responses to the concerns of parliamentarians, they adopted the budgets by majority.

Finally the third group of six ministries under the title "General Administration and Rural Development", concerned the Ministry of Economy and Finance which inherits an envelope of 75.329 billion CFA francs, that of the Budget and the State Portfolio, 298.456 billion, From The Plan and Development, 21.582 billion CFA francs, from the Civil Service with 22.790 billion CFA francs, from the Modernization of Administration and Innovation of Civic Service with 3.103 billion CFA francs and the State Secretariat for Capacity Building, 6.443 billion CFA francs.

Each of the ministers present, including Kaba Nialé, Issa Coulibaly, Raymonde Coffie Goudou and Zorro Bi Ballo and Moussa Sanogo who also represented the Minister of Economy and Finance Adama Coulibaly lent themselves to the questions of the parliamentarians on various subjects affecting their sphere of competence.

After a long debate, all the draft budgets of the ministries were adopted by the members of the CAEF.

At the end of this first day, the Minister in charge of the Budget and the State Portfolio, Moussa Sanogo, expressed his satisfaction with the quality of the debates, with the in-depth exchanges on various subjects.

This Wednesday, 16 ministries are defending their projects before the deputies.

With the switch of Côte d'Ivoire to program budget mode from January 1, each minister must appear before the deputies to defend his budget unlike the budgeting based on the means that was applied since independence.

The 2020 State budget of Côte d'Ivoire is balanced in resources and expenditure at 8,061 billion FCFA, an increase of 9.9% compared to the 2019 budget which was 7,334.3 billion FCFA.