Cameroon: Government raises fuel prices at filling stations

The government has partially bowed to pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which had called on it to scrap fuel subsidies at the filling stations. As of Tuesday 1 July, pump prices have increased. The news was made public through a statement signed by Louis Paul Motaze, Secretary-General at the Prime Minister’s Office, who has revealed that:

 

A litre of Super or Premium petrol has been increased from CFA560 to CFA650 (US$1.37)
A litre of Gas has risen from CFA520 to CFA600 (US$1.25)
A 12.5 kg bottle of cooking gas will now increase from CFA6,000 to CFA6,500 (US$13.56).

 

Motaze said that the fuel price increases will help Cameroon to save money for other state projects and infrastructure, adding that the government spent over CFA1,200 billion on fuel subsidies during the first six years when it implemented subsidies.

 

The government faced a head-on confrontation from angry protesters in February 2008 after it last raised fuel prices. At least 40 people were killed in the clash between street demonstrators and the security forces.

For more news and expert analysis about Cameroon, please see Cameroon Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Cameroon: GE to build new thermal electricity plant in Limbe

The Deputy Manager of Finagestion, GE’s French partner, signed an agreement on Wednesday 23 April in Yaoundé with Minister of Energy and Water Resources Basile Atangana Kouna. The deal authorises Finagestion to build a 314 MW thermal electricity plant in the Atlantic coastal town of Limbe in South-West Region. The plant will be run by gas-fired generators fuelled by Cameroon’s large gas reserves in and around the South-West oil and gas basins.

According to the terms of the accord, Finagestion will conduct a detailed study within 24 months dealing with, among other matters, the cost of the project and the compensation for the affected population. Through Kouna, the government has promised that it will facilitate the smooth functioning of the feasibility studies.

The project falls in line with the government’s plan to lift the country’s electricity production by 3,000 MW by 2020. Many heavy industries have been laden by low electricity supply despite President Biya’s ambition to take the country from a developing nation to an emerging economy by 2035. Observers have repeatedly warned that despite endemic corruption and administrative red-tape, Cameroon could still make great industrial strides with sufficient energy supplies, especially because the country has huge gas reserves and the plants to complement hydroelectricity with thermal power supply from gas-fired generators.

For more news and expert analysis about Cameroon, please see Cameroon Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Cameroon: Biya's security tightened for Africa-EU Summit in Brussels

President Paul Biya’s security was beefed-up at the Africa-European Union Summit in Brussels because of a determined team of Cameroonian activists who planned to disgrace him by throwing tomatoes and chanting anti-Biya slogans. The demonstrations were led by renowned activist Moise Essoh, leader of the activist group known as “Le Code”.

At the Brussels Meridien Hotel, where Biya was staying, members of Le Code flooded the area on 2 April to demonstrate against him.  “Our plan had been to make the world know that Biya is a president of risk,” Essoh said on several interviews posted on the internet and carried by several authoritative local newspapers. “But we were stopped by some 40 armed Cameroonian men in black who had been planted around the hotel.” He added that the Belgian police were drafted in with the Cameroonian security to avoid trouble.

The episode at the summit is another demonstration of the ongoing opposition that Biya faces both at home and abroad for persisting to rule the country for more than 31 years with no sign of him being prepared to step-down.

Biya particularly faces challenges from the younger generation who have been side-lined from decision-making circles in a country of more than 20 million where – despite the poverty, unemployment and nepotism – the gerontocracy has taken the entire governing mechanism hostage which naturally frustrates the younger generation.

For more news and expert analysis about Cameroon, please see Cameroon Politics & Security.
© 2014 Menas Associates

Cameroon: Opposition adopts populist rhetoric

 

Opposition adopts populist rhetoric but it will take more than this to reduce Bouterse's current popularity.

An example of the opposition's MPs populist criticism was the letter they wrote to President Bouterse about the issue of crime. They want Desi Bouterse to outline his crime prevention programme to parliament. They asked whether - besides more investments in the police and their equipment, infrastructure and training - their policies for sustainable unemployment and poverty should be included. They cite the president's previous promises but the latest crime statistics indicate a downward trend, with Suriname's record significantly better than many other countries in the region.

Also, in response to a dramatic accident in which two school-children drowned during a school trip at a resort near the Suriname River, the opposition's Shaleindra Girjasing MP attacked the government by posing questions like: "Why was it only closed down after the accident and not beforehand? Therefore: who should be held responsible? What measures have been taken to prevent this in the future in view of the holiday that is coming up?"

It was not, however, mentioned by Girjasing that it is this government which is currently in the process of introducing life-guard requirements and nets in the water to avoid drowning. The previous administration, of which Girjasing's VHP party was a member, had no significant contribution to the safety of dozens of Suriname's resorts.

It will require sturdier weapons for the opposition to overthrow Desi's popularity and win the hearts of a changing electorate in two years' time.

For more news and expert analysis about Cameroon, please see Cameroon Politics & Security.

© 2013 Menas Associates

Cameroon: Pre-electoral battle surfaces as candidate lists are rejected

 

On 28 March, the Supreme Court, sitting in place of the Constitutional Council, will begin hearing complaints filed by several political parties, including the CPDM, who want to compete for the election. Their lists were rejected by Elections Cameroon (Elecam) which is in charge of organising elections in the country. A 20 March statement from Elecam announced that 23 of the lists of candidates contesting the senatorial election had been rejected while 17 were retained. Not all the parties whose lists were rejected decided to petition so the Constitutional Council will start examining 15 appeals and has ten days to rule on the cases.

Three of the eight parties that had initially entered the race were booted out and surprisingly, six of the CPDM lists were among those rejected for various reasons. Among other reasons, the exclusions were due to poor compilation of files or application for the ballot by several factions of some political parties.

For more news and expert analysis about Cameroon, please see Cameroon Politics & Security.

© 2013 Menas Associates

Catholic Cardinal wants Biya to resign and foresees social implosion in Cameroon

 

Cameroon's chief Catholic prelate, Archbishop Emeritus of the Douala archdiocese, Cardinal Christian Tumi expressed concern about Biya's continuing stay in power after 30 years and declared in the last week of October that social implosion was imminent in Cameroon because of the deplorable conditions under which most of the country's 20 million inhabitants live.

“Before the [October 2011 presidential] elections, I said I had told somebody [Biya], that if I were Paul Biya, I would resign, because for more than 30 years in power and at the age of 80, I would love to see a change. I don't see any change happening in Cameroon by 2035, the year the government claims will see the country transformed into an emerging economy,” the fearless and ascetically-critical Tumi, who originates from the English-speaking North-West Region told the authoritative bi-weekly “The Post” newspaper in an exclusive interview on 19 October.

“But for Cameroon, I don't know whether the people have the freedom or the power to change their leaders. They should have the freedom to choose their leaders. Since independence, I have never seen any transparent elections in Cameroon, even when we had that one party system,” Cardinal Christian Tumi said, forecasting that the country was heading towards social implosion. “Maybe we are sitting on gun powder that might explode one day. Imagine the case where someone is sick and there is no way the person can have himself treated because there is no means, while there are others riding in very luxurious cars, which is seen to have come from doubtful origin,” Tumi questioned.

For more news and expert analysis about Cameroon, please see Cameroon Politics & Security.

© 2012 Menas Associates

Cameroon: Prison letters from ousted minister, Marafa Hamidou Yaya, provoke regime disquiet

Since President Paul Biya's accession to the presidency in 1984 he has founded his regime – at least in part – on the projection of an image of stability and continuity, belying the backroom deals and intense competition for power within Cameroon's fragmented political elite. In this sense the recent and on-going revelations of the former secretary general to the presidency, Marafa Hamidou Yaya, represent one of the most significant threats to have emerged to Biya's presidency in the past 28-years. This is because they threaten to expose the corruption and maladministration on which Cameroon's much-vaunted stability rests while also highlighting the fragility of the regional and ethnic alliances which Biya has orchestrated.

Since his April arrest and detention on corruption charges, Marafa has issued a series of four open letters to Biya which have exposed and denounced the instances of gross corruption that he has witnessed during his 20 years as one of Biya's most valuable 'compagnons de route'. Marafa's arrest is not the first time that Biya has brought down the weight of law against his closest associates and the 1997 case of one of Marafa's predecessors, Titus Edzoa, is instructive. Nor is it the first time that Biya has moved against a potential rival; like Edzoa in his time, Marafa was once widely tipped as a potential successor. This is, however, the first time that one of Biya's victims has chosen not to take the medicine without complaint and has chosen instead to break the vow of 'omertá' observed until now by even disgraced ministers.

In his latest missive, published widely in independent media at the beginning on 5 June, Marafa alleged that in 1995 some 32 billion CFA Francs (US$48.8 million) allocated for the compensation of

families of 71 people killed in an air crash was misappropriated by senior public officials and most notably the current Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary. Marafa further revealed that the five survivors of the Cameroon Airlines (Camair) crash at Douala airport have still to be compensated.

This is, of course, a tremendously emotive issue, reference to which is explicitly designed to illustrate the Biya regime's lack of care towards the Cameroonian people. This is a common rallying cry for opposition to the aloof and, often literally, distant Biya. It is also interesting, however, that following Marafa's December 2011 dismissal as minister for territorial administration, (i.e. interior minister), it was Tchiroma who was frequently cited as the new 'strongman' in Cameroon's 'Grand Nord', effectively displacing Marafa who is also a Muslim ethnic Fulani from Garoua.

Given the importance to Biya – who is a Christian southerner – of a strong alliance with the largely Muslim north, Marafa's attack on Tchiroma looks designed to undermine the regime's North-South alliance, which has been in place since the near-victory of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) – a largely Anglophone party from western Cameroon – in 1992.

For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Cameroon Politics & Security.

© 2012 Menas Associates