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 declared eligible for new World Bank loans

Last week, Minister of Economic Planning and Regional Development Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi declared that Cameroon has been successful in applying for soft loans from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) subsidiary through which projects are supported in eligible developing economies.

Nothing was said about the scale of the loans but Djoumessi said that Cameroon, which had applied for World Bank funding during a 2013 meeting in Washington DC, is expected to use the funding to build roads, develop electricity and fund other key infrastructural projects in the country’s quest to become an emerging economy.

In recent years, Cameroon’s relationship with the World Bank has not been particularly cordial because it has faced criticisms from the Bank for not using all of the credits at its disposal. Corruption, administrative red tape, excessive procedural lapses and inappropriate execution of projects have been at the centre of the discords, which the World Bank had earlier said had kept credit consumption levels at barely 11%.

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: New Boko Haram attacks

 

New Boko Haram attacks and the ongoing CAR crisis keep the government worried about mounting insecurity.

 

Interior Minister Rene Emmanuel Sadi summoned Cameroon's ten governors for a three-day conclave on security and safety that started on Tuesday 17 December amid growing insecurity in and around the country. It is the second conclave this year and comes on the heels of deadly attacks and kidnappings in eastern and northern Cameroon by rebels from war-torn CAR and Boko Haram insurgents from Nigeria.

 

After having kidnapped a French Catholic priest in November, three Boko Haram militants attacked and killed a man in the northern town of Kousserie on Saturday 14 December.

 

The incident comes after Defence Minister Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo'o took delivery of imported heavy munitions at Douala port on Saturday 7 December. He received more than 100 heavy mechanised machine guns in Douala after having acquired two combat helicopters in November, as if to show the government's readiness to counter any internal and/or foreign attack.

 

Cameroon has continued to strengthen its military personnel and arsenal since the beginning of 2013, and has made it publicly visible. This was especially after the Paris-based Jeune Afrique magazine reported earlier this year that the country's military was weakened by obsolete equipment and was contaminated by tribal fratricides within its various compartments.

 

The interior minister said that “Cameroon is being propelled by the head of state Paul Biya through a difficult battle to emergence. But without national order; without peace and serenity, these [economic] projects cannot be realised. This is the key context of this meeting.” He added that, apart from routine investigations by special security units, it was imperative for all the governors to pre-empt attacks and avoid being taken by surprise.

 

On the other hand, Minister of Trade Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana told the meeting that food and other basic commodities were in sufficient supply, because that could also trigger internal social strife which might spill over to give insurgents the opportunity to invade the country.

 

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

 

© 2013 Menas Associates

Cameroon: Former president Ahmadou Ahidjo's daughter joins the CPDM to contest a parliamentary seat

For the past two decades, the family of Cameroon's first post- independence president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, has openly resisted joining President Biya's side. He was the man who peacefully succeeded their father in 1982, but then countered him in the 1984 coup and later condemned him to death for treason.

 

Biya's administration has also been vacillating on the question of Ahidjo's mortal remains being returned from Senegal so he could have a funeral that was worthy of such a statesman. His widow, Germaine Ahidjo, has never succeeded in realising this dream for which she has pressed since her husband died.

 

Events that unfolded last weekend showed, however, that the Ahidjo family is either openly divided and has unavoidably succumbed to Biya's grisly longevity in power, or was seeking a new tactic to penetrate the inner circles of a dangerous “enemy”.

 

So, having concluded that Biya has built an insurmountable political fortress, similar to that initially erected by her own father, the former president's youngest daughter, Aminatou Ahidjo, officially aligned herself with the CPDM in a flamboyant fashion on Friday 6 September. Clad in traditional CPDM regalia she was received by the CPDM Secretary-General Jean Nkuete at the party hall's esplanade in Yaounde. The solemn ceremony showed Nkuete flanked by his deputy Grégoire Owona and the party's Communication Secretary Jacques Fame Ndongo alongside other top officials who had come to receive the august guest.

 

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

 

© 2013 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

IMF sees Cameroon's economy improve in 2018

 

Cameroon has, according to the IMF, witnessed a "moderate economic growth under its current economic policies" in 2013. The news was broken in Cameroon on 4 July by Finance Minister Ousmane Alamine Mey, referring to an IMF executive board meeting that was held earlier in the week in the Cote d'Ivoire capital of Abidjan.

 

The IMF forecasts that Cameroon's real GDP growth will gradually increase to reach 5.5% by 2018, and said this would be bolstered by non-oil revenue, which should be supported by expected key public investment projects and that economic recovery strengthened in 2012 with growth reaching 4.4% when compared with the 4.2% in 2011, which reflects an increase in the value of oil exports.

The board noted that, following the decline in net income, the current account deficit widened from 2.9% of GDP in 2011 to 3.7% in 2012.

 

"Although Cameroon has had robust growth in the past few years, there has been little growth in per capita income, despite a relatively diversified and well-endowed economy," it said.

While acknowledging that the banking system had stabilised, the IMF says that only two out of the five commercial banks in financial distress appear to be in the process of re-establishing their financial soundness.

 

In commending the recovery of economic activity in a low inflation environment, the IMF also cautioned the Cameroonian government to redouble its efforts on fiscal, financial and structural reforms that are necessary to meet the country's growth potential.

 

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

© 2013 Menas Associates

Cameroon: Chinese traders protest insecurity

 

Chinese traders in Cameroon have observed nearly three weeks of strike action as the protest at what they have described as the harassment and killing of their citizens. Since 2004 at least six Chinese have been killed, three of them this year alone, which indicates that insecurity is rising for foreigners and for the Chinese in particular. A statement signed by members of the Chinese expatriate community said that at least 30 burglaries targeted at Chinese expatriates have been recorded since 2004 and they complained of a lack of government action.

Most Chinese shops in Yaounde and Douala were, however, reopened on Monday 8 April although they would not confirm if security had been guaranteed as they had requested. “We strongly demand that this insecurity be taken very seriously,” read a notice that was posted on a Chinese-run shop on Friday, 7 January in Yaounde.

The incidents are widely considered to be xenophobic attacks given the worry amongst some Cameroonians that Chinese migrants are elbowing them out of business by even getting involved in small-scale trading business in very obscure corners in the country. President Biya has turned to China and other emerging economies for investment to boost the economy because of his inability to woo big businesses from Europe, the US Japan. Many Cameroonians see this policy as a government sell-out which allows around 2,000 Chinese residents to take jobs and businesses which would otherwise be taken by locals.

Official trade between China and Cameroon is growing extremely rapidly and rose by 34% in 2008-2009 alone. China also gives Cameroon grants, loans infrastructural development, as well asproviding military-technical assistance.

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: Military surveillance increased around oil-rich basins

Military officials in the South-West Region have told Cameroon Politics & Security that newly-graduated recruits will be used in the fight against the growing national insecurity and especially possible terrorists on the country's Atlantic coast.

The new security structure at Kribi commenced on 19 September and is reportedly equipped with cutting-edge surveillance technology and other military communications gear. It is aimed at reinforcing security around the Douala/Campo Kribi oil basin, as well as in the adjacent Rio del Rey basin in South-West Cameroon. The latter is particularly sensitive because of its proximity to the disputed Bakassi peninsula.

Cameroon hopes that new oil exploitation at the end of 2012 and the start of 2013 will increase its daily oil production from around 63,000 b/d to 100,000 b/d with the new output from Rio del Rey.

The state-run National Hydrocarbons Corporation invested over CFA17 billion in November 2011 for the construction of an ultra-modern building on the shores of Rio del Rey to contain piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.

Cameroon Politics & Security' s military sources have told us that the BIR's expansion to other parts of the coastal waters is to ensure that the troublemakers do not disguise themselves among the locals in order to cause any form of insecurity or jeopardise peace in the areas.

The Kribi BIR's key mission is to protect the gigantic Kribi seaport, ensure the security of the Kribi Gas plant which is under construction along with other investments, as well as the 216MW thermal electricity power station being built by AES-Sonel.

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

© 2012 Menas Associates

Cameroon: Thousands defy tight security to cheer Marafa in first three court appearances

Cameroon's former interior minister Marafa Hamidou Yaya has made three appearances in court on 16, 24 and 26 July, alongside Yves Michel Fotso, the former general manager of the defunct state-run carrier Cameroon Airlines (Camair). They pleaded not guilty to charges that they were involved in a 2004 financial scam of CFA24 billion destined for the purchase of a presidential jet. But their arrival at the Mfoundi High Court in Yaounde for the last two hearings witnessed a heated atmosphere, with over 50 heavily-armed paramilitary gendarmes, police and anti-terrorist troops clad in bullet proof jackets, who had been deployed to contain nearly 5,000 people crowding the court premises to witness the hearings.

Marafa and Fotso were whisked into the courtroom through the back door to avoid the anxious crowd that had thronged the court entrance waiting to receive the accused with cheers. “Free Marafa!” “Free our president!” repeatedly shouted some of them.

The hearings are attracting much attention because Marafa, who has been tipped to face President Paul Biya in the next elections in 2018, had secretly advised the latter not to stand in the October polls. After his arrest and detention in jail, in one of four open letters to Biya, Marafa asked the head of state to quit power. He also began disclosing top government secrets which have started having damaging consequences on the government.

Hearings on the second day were short-lived, despite the several hours of delay, ostensibly to manage the huge and growing support for Marafa. Chief magistrate Gilbert Schlick was forced to adjourn the case to 26 July as the defending lawyers argued that they could not proceed on grounds that the complaint officially outlining the accusations against Marafa and Fotso only reached them four days before the scheduled hearing, a period too short for them to study the dossiers.

“It is impossible to study and master a thick file of 25kg,” argued defending barrister Jean de Dieu Momo, one of Marafa's lawyers. “Moreover, some pages of the documents are missing, so how can we open the case?” Momo questioned, saying that this is just a means to “mix things up and rapidly liquidate this case”. Fotso's lawyer Alice Nkom said their wish was to see equitable justice in which “the rights of the defendants are not sacrificed”. It is for these reasons that the defence lawyers asked for a week's adjournment in order to carefully study the file. But one of the judges accused the defence team of ineptitude to organise themselves in the face of a “very serious matter”.

Inside the courtroom were the director of finances of the state-run National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH) Meding Meko'o, as well as the country's former minister of finance Michel Meva'a M'Eboutou. Both men were among 14 witnesses to testify in the case, as funds to buy the plane were provided by the SNH through the approval of the then minister of finance.

But the postponement seems to have angered the presiding judge Gilbert Schlick, who has just three months to give his verdict on the case. Schlick told the defending lawyers that “even 24 hours were enough for you to understand the file to enable the work to go on, if you really wanted to work”. The next session scheduled for 26 July was yet to start at time of writing, but more crowds of about 7,000 people had already trooped into the court grounds, blocking traffic.

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

© 2012 Menas Associates

Cameroon awards first oil licence on Bakassi

On 15 June, the government-managed National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH) awarded its first petroleum exploration contract on the previously contested Bakassi peninsula. The production-sharing contract for Bakassi West was awarded to a consortium led by Dana Petroleum (a subsidiary of the Korean National Oil Company), which heads a consortium of four firms.

The four-year agreement, worth US$31 million and could be extended by a further two-year period to increase to the tune of US$71 million, will be operated by Dana, with equity interests held by Canada's Madison Petrogas and Cameroon's Soft Oil & Gas Ltd.

The ceremony was overseen by Cameroon's Minister of Mines, Industry and Technological Development Emmanuel Bonde, while the accord was signed for Cameroon by the Executive Manager of SNH Adolphe Moudiki and Dana's country manager John William Downey.

The contract authorises the consortium to acquire, process and interpret seismic 2D data and the drilling of two exploration wells.

Thought to be rich in oil, Bakassi was under Nigerian control for at least 15 years until 2008, when the peninsula was returned to Cameroon following an October 2002 ruling by the International Court of Justice. Although Nigeria has accepted the ruling, the area has faced pockets of resistance from armed splinter groups undermining Cameroon's authority there.

The groups have severally captured Cameroon troops and foreigners operating in Bakassi, urging Cameroon and governments of the captives to pay ransom. In 2010, Cameroon fortified the area with the anti-terrorist Rapid Intervention Battalion, causing a reduction in the groups' activities. Operating under the moniker Bakassi Freedom Fighters (BFF), the groups have not been entirely deterred, however, and made their last attack in October 2011, killing two Cameroonian soldiers.

For more news and expert analysis about Cameroo, 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