Cameroon’s airline Camair Co has been in big trouble since the beginning of this year. After the company announced in January that 4 aircrafts of its fleet of 6 got out of order, the remaining two also broke down.

On March 19, the aviation authority instructed Camair Co to stop operating its Chinese MA 60 due to a “Tail Strike” (when the plane’s tail hit the ground) that occurred March 10 at Bafoussam Airport, Western Region. A few days earlier, it was the company’s Bombardier Q400 that broke down, after hitting a stepladder in the parking following a violent storm, sources said.

However, in order to continue ensuring regional and domestic services (with a rate of 100 flights a week), Camair Co is now only using a small aircraft from Brazilian manufacturer Embraer. The aircraft was rented from Equatorial Guinea, we learnt. This situation, let’s recall, occurred when the airlines’ top management was aiming for a soon resumption of flights to Paris, France.

2019 is on the path to be a tough year for Camair Co with serious underperformances. Yet, the company performed well last year, after more than 6 years of difficulties. In January this year, it posted a turnover of XAF1.4 billion, compared to an average monthly revenue of XAF2.4 billion throughout 2018. Executives, who projected figures to further fall to XAF700 million in February due to the suspension of 4 aircrafts, now see a much wider gap for this month and the rest of the year.

Such a drastic underperformance cannot be cushioned unless the government backs Camair Co but the government itself has been facing treasury tensions for the past two years due to increasing security expenses (Boko Haram, Anglophone crisis, unrest in Adamaoua etc.). According to reliable sources, fixing the engines of its two Boeing 737 alone will cost Camair Co a minimum of XAF14 billion.

Source: Business in Cameroon

March salaries for majority of civil servants may not be paid, Ministry of Finance sources have revealed. Cameroon Concord News gathered that teachers, officers under military, police and the intelligence will all be affected.

The Biya Francophone regime has cited technical failure in an engine room serving the National Center for the Development of Informatics which hosts the computer system managing all public servants data.

Medics and other health workers including officers employed under the numerous ministries created by the Cameroonian dictator will also face one of the longest salary delays to hit the civil service in recent times in the CEMAC region.

Our senior business affairs correspondent in Yaoundé hinted that the ruling CPDM crime syndicate is confronting some difficulties in managing its Payroll Management and Establishment Control system.

Cameroon Intelligence Report sources however said the Beti Ewondo regime has failed to raise sufficient revenue to fund salaries mainly due to depressed economic activities in January and February and the crisis in Southern Cameroons.

As anticipated, the delay to settle civil servant salaries is already breeding ground for corruption. The situation is becoming desperate and civil servants are in the dark about what is happening to their salaries.

“Delays in paying salaries have often offer an incentive to Cameroonian civil servants to engage in corruption and if the current situation does not change, we will see a lot of corruption cases involving government workers” noted a baron of the Biya administration.

By Sama Ernest and Rita Akana in Yaounde

Cameroonian President Paul Biya inked March 19, 2019 a decree authorizing the finance minister to conclude with Ecoank Cameroon a XAF25 to 60 billion loan agreement.

Monies will partially fund the 3-year Growth Acceleration Emergency Plan (Planut), adopted by the government in December 2014. The plan requires a capital of XAF925 billion.

Focus sectors include agriculture (seed distribution and opening of agricultural roads), health (improving technical capacities of certain hospitals), real estate (construction of 1000 social housing units across the country) and road infrastructure. Overall, 35,000 jobs are expected to be created under the scheme.

Planut is co-financed by five banks including the Cameroonian subsidiaries of BGFI, Standard Chartered Bank, Banque Atlantique, Ecobank and Deutsche Bank of Madrid.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Cameroon will make efforts to enhance the skills of and opportunities for women in the digital business as part of the measures to draw more young girls to the sector, said its telecommunications minister on Thursday.

“The more women we have in digital business, the better for the emancipation and growth of women,” said Minister of Post and Telecommunications Minette Libom Li Likeng.

“Digital economy is the future for our country and Africa. It plays a very important role in economies in developing countries. We will look for efficient and effective ways to encourage young digital entrepreneurs,” Likeng said while meeting with young female digital entrepreneurs at the National Advanced School of Post and Telecommunications.

The event was part of the activities to mark the International Women’s Day on March 8. Over 2,900 female students have been trained by the school with government support, Likeng said, calling for efforts to enroll more girls to the school.

Xinhuanet

State-own telephone network service provider Cameroon Telecommunications (Camtel) has reportedly fired 50 of its employees, including administrative, commercial and technical staff. According to an official statement by the company, Judith Yah Achidi Achu, General Manager of Camtel, made this decision based on recommendations of a disciplinary committee established to evaluate the cases of the concerned workers on an individual basis.

Details are sketchy at this point, but a source at Camtel said that the GM is believed to have ordered an internal audit to investigate and identify specific HR issues. These include employees who have secured employment using fake certificates or who have earned undue bonuses, or whose salary does not match their qualifications.

The latest development has occurred while the company’s new management is attempting to rejuvenate the beleaguered corporation. Specifically, the intention is to address financial difficulties including debt and the result of inability to recover substantial amounts owing.

According to a report released by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications in August 2018, Camtel had 3,634 permanent staff across the country, a figure which has been on the rise since 2006. There is speculation that more jobs could be lost as the audit progresses. The company provides landline connectivity services and CDMA, and plans to incorporate GSM going forward.

Source: itwebafrica

Landlocked Chad and the Central African Republic have dispatched senior customs officials to Cameroon to look into allegations of corruption in the Atlantic Coast port of Douala.

At the port, heavy equipment is excavating and relocating huge quantities of abandoned material at the Douala seaport.

Some of the containers, with vehicles and other goods destined for Cameroon, Chad and CAR, were abandoned by importers who complain that high levels of corruption, red tape and overpriced services are driving them away from one of Africa’s largest harbors.

​Pay and pay again

Moise Vokeng of the Professional Transporters Network at the Douala seaport says importers and exporters are looking for alternatives.

“When you arrive at the port and at any checkpoint, from gendarmes to police to customs, you have to pay money, you have to pay heavy money, you do not know why you pay but you must pay before you pass,” Vokeng said.

“Whether you enter with empty trucks or you are loaded, you have to pay. When we load we have to wait for the tracking equipment from the customs to be certain and when it is certain we have six hours to leave the seaport to Yassa, which is the first checkpoint. When you arrive at the checkpoint after six hours you have penalties to pay,” he added.

Vokeng says clearing procedures are long and cumbersome because of degraded infrastructure and lack of investment. He says to take a car out, an importer needs no fewer than 25 stamps before paying $2,000 to customs officials for a 5- to 10-year-old car. He says to remove a car from the port at times takes two to three weeks.

Yaya Abdallah, a Chadian driver finally leaves the port. He says corruption is not only a problem inside the port, it stalks drivers on the road as well. He says Chadian and CAR drivers say Cameroon’s military and police harass them and drivers pay huge sums of money, which makes their businesses highly unprofitable.

He says they spend more than $300 to bribe gendarmes and police between Douala and Ndjamena, and no one seems to listen to them when they complain.

​Officials deny bribe-taking

But Ngube Philomene, a senior official of the Cameroon military controlling traffic between Cameroon and Chad and Cameroon and CAR, says that because of insecurity, they have to control the trucks. She denies they collect bribes from drivers.

“We are systematically controlling all vehicles to CAR and Chad because of insecurity and the crisis in CAR. We have to do it for their own security and safety,” Ngube says.

Douala is the nearest ocean gateway for Chad and CAR, but importers and exporters say they are fed up and want to relocate to Cotonou in Benin.

Onana Ndoh, secretary general of the Community of Workers at Douala’s port authority argues, that Cotonou will be more expensive. He says it would be better for the landlocked countries to meet Cameroonian authorities and negotiate improvements.

“The shippers of Central Africa and Chad cannot leave the port of Douala, the shortest way for them to go to the sea,” he said. “I can tell you that the commandant of Gendarmerie in the port has already taken steps to punish all caught in creating complications to shippers.”

This week, Chad’s director of customs, Colonel Ousmane Adam Dicki, visited Cameroon. He says he first wants goods that have been piling up there to be cleared before negotiations on what his country will do next.

He says his country has sent him to take stock of all merchandise and containers destined for Chad, and to control and organize their transit within the shortest possible time.

More than 2,000 containers have been stuck in Douala for the past two months. In the past 30 years, there has been no major investment to expand the port.

Culled from VOA