Francophone army soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons have been escorting several convoy of tanker trucks carrying stolen Ambazonia oil from the city of Victoria named by the Biya French Cameroun regime as Limbe.

Last week, the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Ambazonia Interim Government cited local sources from the Fako County as saying that so many convoy of French Cameroun tanker trucks loaded with Southern Cameroons oil were transferred to Douala.

According to the Ambazonia Interim Government report that was made public by Vice President Dabney Yerima, the oil was taken from Southern Cameroons main oil refinery in Cape Limbo in Limbe. Yerima added that Southern Cameroons stolen oil has often been transferred through the Victoria-Tiko Highway to Douala in French Cameroun.

The Southern Cameroons Vice President further said that a convoy of 54 military trucks carrying logistical equipment belonging to the Biya French Cameroun military entered the Bakassi area via Ndian County and have been participating in smuggling Southern Cameroons crude oil.

Soldiers of the Francophone military regularly smuggle Ambazonian oil to French Cameroun. The regime in La Republique du Cameroun has stationed forces and equipment in Fako and Ndian in the Southern Zone of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, with Yaounde claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oilfields in the Bakassi area from falling into the hands of Nigwerian terrorists and Amba fighters.

The Ambazonia Interim Government, however, says the unlawful deployment is meant to plunder Southern Cameroons resources.

By Isong Asu with files from Fon Lawrence in Victoria-Limbe

A Pro Biya prosecutor has issued a travel ban against the CEO of the L’Anecdote Group, Jean-Pierre Amougou Belinga, who is among the top officials of the ruling CPDM party widely blamed for the unprecedented corruption in Cameroon.

The Judge issued the travel ban against Amougou Belinga, who has been at the center of investigations at home and abroad into his conduct launched after it was revealed the controversial Francophone business tycoon had several nasty deals with prominent Cameroon government ministers.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands the judge imposed the ban as part of a Cameroon government investigation into the Amougou Belinga business empire, whose existence has come under public scrutiny. CIR’s chief intelligence correspondent in Yaoundé hinted that the next stage of the Amogou Belinga probe would be questions to the CEO at the Special Criminal Court.

A judicial source said the travel ban was pursuant to an end of year declaration by the 88-year old President Biya over alleged financial misconduct deep within government circles.

The source said the Amougou Belinga probe will include investigating alleged fraud and complaints about the CEO by journalists working for his private TV Channel in addition to looking at CAMPOST’s financial engineering operations involving Minister Paul Atanga Nji, Minister Issa Tchiroma and Minister Laurent Esso.  The source added that the Special Criminal Court had summoned Amougou Belinga for questioning over the case but the exact date of the session had yet to be publicly disclosed.

Amougou Belinga’s investments in France are also being investigated on suspicion of money laundering and illicit enrichment, among other allegations including dubious state subsidies.

When the big man arrived at the Yaoundé-Nsimalen airport to board an Air France flight to Paris, he was told by police officers carrying a ban on leaving the country that he could not enter the plane.  His travel documents, including a Central African Republic diplomatic passport, were taken away from him.

The Beti-Ewondo businessman reportedly protested and threatened to fight but he left the scene and return home after he was informed that Martin Mbarga Nguélé, the Delegate General for National Security was about to order his arrest.

Cameroon’s economy has been in a free-fall state since President Biya announced a massive anti corruption campaign more than a decade ago.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Eight employees of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), the largest employer in the two Cameroons after the Francophone dominated civil service, were reportedly arrested last week Thursday on the Tiko-Douala road by Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards for defying Interim Government orders which prohibits any work in state-owned plantations in the entire Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that seven workers and a tractor driver were picked up by Amba fighters after heavy exchange of gunfire with troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaounde.

A CDC official who confirmed the incident to our Fako correspondent noted that “There are Cameroon government soldiers everywhere. We don’t know how these Amba fighters do it, because there are soldiers everywhere. We don’t know where they were stationed, to the point of succeeding in taking the workers away.”

The CDC Head Office in a poorly worded statement stated that “It is difficult to know in which direction the employees were taken, let alone where they are being held, if they are still alive. It is also difficult to know the identity of the kidnappers. But in all likelihood, they are alleged separatist militiamen, who have often been used to this type of crime.”

It has been a long time since Amba fighters in the Fako County staged attacks against CDC employees. This latest Amba action has put the CDC back into a state of psychosis as it tries to recover from the horrors of the Southern Cameroons crisis.

By Fon Lawrence in Tiko

About a fifth of every beer sold in Cameroon is a Guinness. This is outstanding for a beer that arrived relatively late on the Cameroonian drinking scene. According to Guinness Cameroun S.A, the stout was introduced to Cameroon at the start of the 20th-century by European traders who docked with bottles of the black stuff on board their ships.

It was an instant hit and Guinness Ltd, the London-based parent company at the time, started exporting to Cameroon to meet the growing demand. In 1967, Guinness Cameroun S.A was incorporated and a depot opened in the port city of Limbe to supply the local market. Three other depots quickly followed in other parts of the country, and by 1969 the decision was made to open a brewery in Douala. The brewery started serving Cameroonians homemade Guinness in 1970.

When TV launched in Cameroon in 1985, Guinness took advantage of the platform to run ads that not only charmed viewers but touted the beverage as the embodiment of strength. First, it was good for you, as in good for your health and mood, and then it brought out the power in you.

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Those old enough to remember often talk about when Guinness was sold in pharmacies. People would run to the bar after donating blood, and women would demand a pint or two while recovering on the delivery bed. People who didn’t drink Guinness would occasionally take it for stomach trouble. Conversations like these have taken the beer from regular drinking spaces into the lives of the non-drinking public. Of course, the company ties its success to something simpler: the quality of its product.

“Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is successful in Cameroon because of its heritage and quality,” explains Guinness Cameroun S.A’s Communications Manager, Jeanne Nji. “The quality of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout has not changed. The recipe remains the same, and our consumers are delighted with this same great taste.”

At the turn of the millennium, Guinness pushed the dialogue even further when they introduced Michael Power, a Bond-like character whose inspirational monologues accompanied an action-packed series that aired on TV and radio across Africa. Once again, Cameroonians were hooked.

Guinness also has a long association with the Mount Cameroon Race of Hope, a grueling foot race to the top of West Africa’s tallest mountain and back. The race is held annually and broadcast on national television.  Sponsorship of sports tournaments like the English Premier League works well in a football-mad country. The company takes on local causes and rewards its consumers with free bottles, cars, and cash during promotions. Ad campaigns like “Made of Black” and “Made of Greatness” target young consumers with aspirational messages that highlight their desire for self-expression.

Even stronger than the ads is the legion of cult followers who wouldn’t touch another beer with a stick. These ultra-fans are fiercely loyal and like to brag about how long they’ve stuck to the Guinness brand. For some, it’s an essential part of family tradition—having been passed down from their grandparents to their fathers—and something they hope their kids will carry on. There are even collectors among them who refuse to part with old Guinness bottles and crowns. These are the people who only go to bars and events that serve Guinness or carry their crates along.

Cameroon is currently ranked fifth in Guinness consumption, just behind the United States, which is 13 times bigger with over 30 million people of Irish descent. Cameroon doesn’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but it shows its affection for Guinness in many other ways. One of the reasons Cameroon lost its fourth place to the U.S. is because Diageo (Guinness’ parent company) is trying to diversify its market by offering locally made premium wines and spirits and a range of lagers across Africa.

Guinness Cameroun S.A has a long history of experimenting with variations of Guinness like Guinness Smooth, Guinness Chocolate Stout, and Guinness Triple Black—a dark spirit that first launched in Cameroon in 2018. Guinness Triple Black was made to mark the company’s 50th anniversary in Cameroon.

It’s just as well that the unbelievers are being offered alternatives, especially in parts of the country where some drinks are banned. When civil war broke out in Cameroon in 2017, there were calls for Southern Cameroonians to boycott beer brands that put money into the pockets of the government.

Some independence fighters trying to enforce the ban have allegedly maimed or killed people for selling or consuming what they now consider contraband in the war zone. There’s a whole new set of people drinking Guinness or Guinness products because it’s the safe thing to do.

In other places, the fighters have taken the less violent route by placing tariffs on banned beers, but the most lucrative business comes from smugglers bringing in Guinness from neighboring Nigeria to satisfy the growing market.

Nigeria is the second-biggest consumer of Guinness globally, the kind of neighbor you want in times of desperate need. Nigeria and Cameroon are two of only six places where Guinness owns and runs its breweries. These two markets lead a continent where 40% of the world’s Guinness is brewed and sold.

Nigerian Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is cheaper, but Cameroonians think it’s weaker and aren’t keen on the taste. Blindfold a Cameroonian fanatic, and the disappointment on their face will tell you they’re drinking the neighbor’s poor substitute. Still, many would rather suffer the slight discomfort than drink any other beer.

Culled from Fodors.com

The World Bank approved on November 30, 2021 a credit from the International Development Association (IDA)* in the amount of $200 million to support Cameroon’s agricultural production in the Valley of Logone, located in the Far North region and being part of the Lake Chad basin.

The project, Valorization of Investments in the Valley of the Logone (VIVA Logone), seeks specifically to (i) support regional water security and governance of the water resources, mainly through rehabilitation of irrigation and drainage infrastructure and support to water users’ associations, (ii) promote agriculture and agribusiness production, and (iii) implement a transformational plan of SEMRY (Société d’expansion et de modernisation de la riziculture de Yagoua) and strengthen public services.

The project will benefit different groups of poor people: poor farmers, particularly women, by improving their ability to increase irrigation productivity and a likely doubling of cropping intensity; and through infrastructure investments and support for intensifying production, improved irrigation and drainage. In addition, improved flood management, including the early warning system in 300 km, would benefit the residents of the Logone Valley, both in Cameroon and Chad.

“A series of factors, ranging from ecological fragility to violence-related insecurity, have forced Cameroon’s agricultural sector to low productivity and low-production subsistence agriculture, particularly in the Far North. Irrigation is fundamental to ensure food security and contribute to reducing the risk of conflicts in this Sudano-Sahelian agroecological zone which is the most ecologically fragile and the most vulnerable to climatic shocks. The development of the Logone Valley plays an important role in the resilience of vulnerable communities, livelihoods and ecosystems, including their ability to better cope and adapt to the impact of climatic shocks” said Abdoulaye Seck, World Bank Country Director for Cameroon.

The project will have three main components: the first one will improve the infrastructure and water management; the second will promote production and support agriculture services and the third one will support the sector development and the implementation of the project.

Source: Devdiscourse

Currently, Cameroon’s road network is 121,873.93 kilometers long. However, only 48.86% of that network is in a good or average condition. As for the remaining 51.14%, it is in bad condition, Minister of Public Works Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi explained on December 1, 2021, while defending the 2022 budget of his ministerial department before the parliament.

According to the official, the poor condition of those roads is due to a lack of maintenance fundings. Indeed, he explained, over the past ten years, Cameroon’s road network has increased by 121%, from 55 000 km in 2010, to 121,873.93 km in 2021. But the budget dedicated to its maintenance has not grown proportionally.

To address the situation, the government intends to not only concede the road maintenance but also implement a new strategy aimed at ensuring the sustainability of dirt roads that constitute well over 93% of the national road network, he explained.

The new strategy was developed because the Ministry of Public Works noticed that the maintenance solutions implemented so far have limitations. On June 1-3, 2021, a workshop was organized in Yaoundé to discuss the new strategy, we learn.

Based on new maintenance methods and the use of innovative products, the strategy is aimed at “improving the load-bearing capacity of the unconsolidated materials that usually form the surface of those roads. It is also aimed at reducing the impacts f traffic on them by controlling and monitoring the circulation of heavy vehicles as well as controlling and limiting the impacts of climatic conditions…”

Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi stresses that the implementation of the new strategy will have to be supported with governance measures such as improved rigor in the execution of the works in strict compliance with agreed terms and the multiplication of monitoring and emergency intervention networks.

According to the Ministry of Public Works, the feedback collected one year after implementing this strategy will serve as guidelines for the elaboration of a technical guide for the maintenance of dirt roads taking into account ecological and technical specificities, the problems encountered, the optimal solutions, and the implementation protocol.

Ultimately, in addition to optimizing the maintenance of dirt roads, the strategy is expected t positively impact Cameroonians whose “living standard (…) is affected by the services they receive through those dirt roads.”

Source: Business in Cameroon

The anglophone crisis dragged growth down by  0.8 and 0.3 points of GDP respectively in 2019 and 2020 in Cameroon. This represents a cumulated loss in GDP estimated at XAF421.3 billion between 2017 and 2020.

The figures were presented on November 23, 2021, by Paul Tasong, Minister Delegate to the Minister of Economy Planning and Regional Development, while presenting the presidential plan for the reconstruction of the anglophone regions.

For Paul Tasong, the poor performance was due to decline in business in several sectors, the most affected being the agricultural sector.

For instance, the paddy rice segment recorded an average of 14.5% drop in activities yearly between 2017 and 2019 before rising by about 10% in 2020. Meanwhile, crude palm oil production dropped by about 90% over the period, going from 37,400 tons in 2016 to about  4 300 tons in 2019. “In 2020, however, there was a reverse in the downtrend with a 131% rise in the production of palm oil to reach  9 900 tons,” Paul Tasong explained.

Regarding the banana sector, production dropped from  125,019 tons in 2016 to 16,897 tons in 2019 in the South West because state firm Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) stopped operations in 2018.

“However, production recovered in 2020 to 21,132 tons. In the first half of 2021, the company produced nearly 16,272 tons of bananas,” the delegated Minister added. 

As far as consumer products are concerned, fish supplies dipped significantly in the regions in 2019 before stabilizing in 2020 that saw a 14.6% rise in the Northwest and 25.3% in the Southwest,  we learn.

Industry

The poor performance of manufacturing industries in the anglophone regions caused a decline in medium-voltage energy consumption in the order of 19.5%, 6%, and 25%, respectively in 2017, 2018, and 2019. The resumption in activities recorded in the manufacturing industries 2020 resulted in a 7% rise in the consumption of that type of energy, Paul Tasong continued.

He further explained that the cocoa and tourism sectors were impacted as well. Also, due to the crisis,  a significant number of public projects worth XAF16.4 billion were not executed during the 2017-2019 period despite the increase in budgets allocated. In that context, the public investment budget implementation rate remained relatively low in the North-West and South-West regions (the estimated average is  64.4% and 68.2 respectively) between 2017 and 2019.  In 2020, that rate improved notably to 83.7% in the North-west and  89.9% in the South-west.

According to the GICAM, the largest employers’ grouping in Cameroon, from 2016 to date, companies have lost an estimated XAF800 billion.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari launched the country’s new digital eNaira currency on Monday as Africa’s largest economy looked to tap into the growing popularity of virtual money and cryptocurrencies.

With the eNaira, Nigeria becomes the first in sub-Saharan Africa to fully launch a digital currency and joins China and a few other countries using or piloting central bank-regulated electronic tender.

“We have become the first country in Africa and one of the first in the world to introduce a digital currency to our citizens,” Buhari said at the official launch.

Nigeria has seen booming interest in cryptocurrencies as people look for ways to avoid the weakening naira currency and combat high costs of living and unemployment in Africa’s most populous country.

Central bank-backed digital currencies or CBDCs and cryptocurrencies are both virtual money though the CBDCs are legal tender regulated by central banks while cryptos are out of government control.

Five countries have already launched CBDCs, with another 14 including Sweden and South Korea in the pilot stage, according to the Atlantic Council’s CBDC tracking project.

In West Africa, Ghana is also looking to launch its own CBDC soon.

Nigeria’s central bank earlier this year sought to control the use of cryptocurrencies by ordering banks to close accounts that were involved in such transactions.

‘Increasing the tax base’

But in spite of the central bank ban, many Nigerians still skirt traditional sectors to use cryptocurrency for overseas transactions.

Experts say digital currencies can potentially reduce transaction costs and ease cross border transfers while also expanding financial inclusion as people with no banking access can use their mobile phones.

“The use of CBDCs can help move many more people and businesses from the informal into the formal sector, thereby increasing the tax base of the country,” Buhari said.

The new eNaira will be issued as legal tender like the current naira currency and will operate on the Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain. It will also follow the official exchange rate.

Customers will be able to download the eNaira app and fund their mobile wallets using their bank accounts, according to the central bank.

Nigeria’s central bank says it will adapt the system after the launch to encourage use by people with no banking access, especially in rural areas.

The eNaira launch comes as Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, is tackling the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and the sharp drop in global crude prices.

Slipping into its second recession in five years after the start of the pandemic, Nigeria’s economy has bounced back to growth. But inflation, especially cost of food, remains stubbornly high and the naira weak against the dollar.

Source: AFP

Cameroon is taking steps to address a housing shortage by constructing and selling 10,000 affordable homes, the country’s Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Celestine Ketcha Courtes has said.

Courtes said, the move, which has been in progress, focuses on the construction of homes for sale to individuals and non-profit organizations.

“The government and her partners will work harder and faster to complete thousands of other apartments to give out to those in need. Our aim is to provide decent and modern homes to Cameroonians,” Courtes said in the capital Yaounde on Monday during an official ceremony to mark the World Habitat Day.

Demand for housing soared early in the COVID-19 pandemic as Cameroonians sought more spacious accommodations for home offices and home schooling, but a shortage of homes for sale and supply chain bottlenecks have driven housing prices sharply higher in the Central African nation, according to officials.

Source: Xinhuanet

Cameroon’s economy is predicted to grow by 4.4 percent next year while economic activity this year will rebound to 3.4 percent compared with 0.7 percent in 2020, according to the country’s President Paul Biya.

In 2022, based on the assumption that the pandemic will be brought under control and economies will open up, coupled with the fallout from the stimulus measures, Cameroon’s economy is projected to grow by 4.4 percent, with 4.7 percent for the non-oil sector and -1.8 percent for the oil sector. Inflation is expected to be contained at 2 percent, below the community threshold of 3 percent, Biya said in a document addressed to government officials.

The document also outlined the country’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2022, providing insight into top priorities for the Central African nation.

The post COVID-19 recovery plan aims to ensure the structural transformation of Cameroon’s economy with particular emphasis on the continuation of the import-substitution policy required to strengthen the resilience of the economy, Biya said in the document that was made public on Tuesday.

“Specifically, special emphasis will be placed on finalization and commissioning of major first-generation projects, strengthening of social cohesion and decentralization, reconstruction of crisis-affected regions, particularly the Northwest, Southwest and Far North, organization of the Africa Cup of Nations and continued implementation of Universal Health Coverage,” Biya said.

The fight against security threats with a view to sustainably overcoming the pertinent challenges facing the country will be strengthened, according to the document.

Source: Xinhuanet