Getting an accommodation in Cameroon’s Douala city is a nightmare, as one is required to pay 6 months or even a year’s rent advance. As a result, many young working people who are faced with this harsh reality, prefer to stay longer with their parents.

Socrate Tanleu is a tenant and is frustrated by this practice.

“For example, I have had to pay up to 12 months to get an apartment and for a young person who is just entering the workforce, it is not easy to find 12 months to pay a landlord to get an apartment’‘, Tanleu told Africanews.

The practice is illegal, but many apartment owners are defiant.

“Legally, this practice is not normal because rent is payable after occupation. The rent advance is not legal”, said Cameroonian-based lawyer, Nicolas Ntamag.

But for many homeowners, this practice is a safety net against an unstable labour market.

Bertrand Tashinda owns an apartment in Douala.

“We have the public sector which employs very few people and with the private sector, there is no guarantee of employment. At any time you can lose your job for more misleading reasons than any other. So it makes the landlords think it’s better to take a year and with a year he can even build up a little reserve of money to be able to repair his apartment if necessary”, said Tashinda.

Like Ivory coast, Cameroon wants to put in place a more advanced legal framework for tenants and property owners.

The country plans to limit payment of rent advance and the deposit to two months. It hopes this will facilitate access to housing for many Cameroonians.

Source: Africa News

Ten people were killed and another 10 injured after a dumping site for copper mining waste collapsed in the town of Kitwe in Zambia’s Copperbelt province, police said on Wednesday.

“The incident happened this morning and at least 10 people have been confirmed dead,” Copperbelt police chief Charity Katanga said by phone from Kitwe, 400 km (248 miles) north of the capital Lusaka.

Zambia is Africa’s second largest copper producer and houses operations of many global mining companies including Vedanta, Barrick Gold Corp and Glencore.

Glencore’s Mopani Copper Mines (MCM) has been forced to halt production in recent years due to similar fatal incidents in the copper-rich area, which is also known for illegal mining around the dumpsites.

The latest incident happened at Black Mountain where artisanal miners have taken to re-mining the waste site for copper and other metals.

In February the government’s mining investment arm gave a 10 percent stake in the waste site to small-scale miners to empower surrounding communities riven by unemployment and poverty.

There remain, however, serious concerns about safety measures at the site which continues to suffer periodic collapses.

(Source: Reuters)

The Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC has executed an immediate shut down of 8 of its Estates due to increased insecurity. Cameroon Concord News gathered that these estates include Mbonge, Illoani, Mukonje, Mondoni, Tombel, Malende and Meanja. Our source who is a management staff also hinted that the affected workers would be paid 50% of their salary.

The Director of Human Resources who spoke to our undercover reporter confirmed the company’s decision and further pointed out that the agro industrial plant may be close down completely if the fighting intensifies in Southern Cameroons.

CDC is the second largest employer after the CPDM government. Yaoundé recently ordered an investigation into the management of CDC and reportedly bailout the corporation with the sum of 90 billion FCFA.  Insiders say the Estates will remain shut down for as long as security procedures are not in place for the public and CDC personnel. The shutdown is likely to be indefinite as the crisis in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is showing no signs of ending.

The shutdown will have a direct impact on the crisis noted a highly placed Cameroon government official contacted by our correspondent in Limbe. The management immediately told the government of its decision to close down some Estates earlier this week. Since the conflict started, the Yaounde government has made one mistake after another. In January 2017, it arrested and jailed Southern Cameroonian leaders who had called for a federal system that would guarantee that the people take ownership of their own development projects.

Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and Mr. Mancho Bibixy were captured and hastily taken to Yaounde in the belief that the population’s anger would be doused. This only inflamed Southern Cameroonians, and things actually took a turn for the worse.

To ensure that its atrocities in the region were not captured on video, the government cut off Internet and other communication systems. In the process, many businesses were killed and the unemployment rate in the region reached alarming rates. Silicon Mountain, a hub for many start-ups in the South West regional headquarters of Buea, was put out of business. The disconnection of the Internet created many Internet refugees and ever since, Silicon Mountain has become a thing of the past.

Rather than seek to appease a people who have been hurting for decades, the Yaounde government proceeded to employing tricks in the hope that it will come out of the conflict victorious. After more than six months in jail for no crime committed, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and others were released, while Mr. Mancho Bibixy was left in jail. He was later convicted of many flimsy crimes, including terrorism.

Once the leaders were released in 2017, the ruling party’s propaganda immediately kicked in. It portrayed the releases as an act of magnanimity on the president’s part. But the tricks of the past could no longer work the miracles they had produced in the past. The people were sick and tired of the government’s manipulation and trickery. Southern Cameroonians no longer want to have anything to do with their unfortunate past. The calls for federalism have now developed into independence and secession.

By Tina Nene Nganda

Cameroon Concord News Group

The port of Douala, the largest in Central Africa, this week launched an operation to remove wrecks of old boats which hamper its functionality and competitiveness.

“At the operational level, the impacts are even heavier because we are losing docks that should bring us money. It is on the dock that the boat comes to dock to allow exchanges,” said Georges Menye the project manager.

This operation is the first “in 33 years”, according to Cyrus Ngo’o, general manager of the autonomous port of Douala. “The port, the Wouri River is full of a hundred wrecks and we have decided to start with the most dangerous. The first twenty-five wrecks that impede the operation of the port are those that constitute this phase of the project,“ said Mr. Ngo’o.

Fear of pollution

Most of the boats whose frames have been abandoned in the port of Douala are over half a century old and are feared to contain asbestos.

“The majority of these boats are over 50 years old. However, nearly 20 years ago, the construction of boats with asbestos was stopped. Asbestos that has become toxic to humans,” worried Mr. Georges Menye, the project manager.

This contract for the withdrawal of abandoned boats was awarded to an Italian company, Bonifacio, for a sum of 4.7 billion CFA francs (just over 7 million euros).

Work to remove the first 25 wrecks will take eight months.

The main outlet for landlocked Central African countries such as Chad and the Central African Republic, the port of Douala is characterised by its dilapidated infrastructure, congestion, corruption and administrative hassles.

More than 95% of Cameroon’s port traffic passes through Douala.

In February, the French tropical timber trader Rougier designated the “chronic congestion” of the port of Douala as one of the causes of its bankruptcy.

“The bankruptcy of the Rougier group could not be the responsibility of the port of Douala, where the logistics operations of foreign trade are carried out normally”, then reacted Cyrus Ngo’o.

Source: Africa News

The Adamawa and Taraba Area Command of the Nigeria Customs has intercepted a truckload of petroleum products about to be smuggled into Cameroon at Sahuda border post bordering Nigeria and Cameroon in Adamawa State.

Kamardeen Olumoh, the Area Comptroller of the Command, while displaying the seizure before journalists in Yola, said the agency had beamed its searchlight on transborder smuggling of petroleum products which is capable of engendering artificial scarcity of the product.

“These drums here, about 90 of them, contain 20,550 litres of petrol concealed in a truck loaded with assorted household consumables, heading to the Cameroon Republic,” Mr Olumoh said.

“This command has declared zero tolerance to any act capable of undermining the economic strength of our dear country.

“We will not allow unscrupulous elements who are bent on sabotaging the economy of Nigeria to take advantage of the proximity to the border to engage illicit trans-border activities.”

Mr Olumoh said some unpatriotic citizens are bent on sabotaging the system through illegal activities that constituted economic crimes against the nation besides its attendant hardship on innocent citizens.

He said the fuel scarcity experienced in the recent past, especially within the two states, was as a result of the activities of smugglers, adding that the command under his watch has stepped up its game to forestall the movement of unauthorised fuel out of the country.

Mohammed Alaku, DPR Area Comptroller for Adamawa and Taraba Zone, said the cross-border smuggling of petroleum had aggravated the suffering experienced by residents of the two states during the recent fuel scarcity experienced in the country petroleum.

Mr Alaku said business operators willing to explore legitimate means of doing trans-border business would benefit, assuring them that the customs was ready to support only legitimate businesses involved in the import and export trade.

Source: The Premium Times

Uganda’s parliament has imposed a tax on the use of social media in a bid to raise revenue but opponents of the law say it aims to stifle criticism of President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986.

Users will be charged 200 shillings ($0.0531) per day for services such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. That amounts to around $19 per year in a country where gross domestic product per capita was around $615 in 2016, according to World Bank figures.

The tax was passed on Wednesday as part of an overhaul of an excise duty law due to take effect next financial year which starts in July, parliament spokesman Chris Obore told Reuters.

A junior finance minister previously told journalists the tax would be levied daily by mobile phone operators on each SIM card used to access any of the targeted social media platforms.

There was no immediate comment from cell phone operators or social media companies, but rights advocates denounced the move.

“It (tax) is a new tool of stifling free expression and citizen organising that has been beyond the control of the state,” said Nicholas Opiyo, a Kampala-based lawyer who also heads a local rights organisation.

“It’s intended to curtail the ever increasing central role of social media in political organising,” he said.

A government spokesman did not return a call seeking comment but authorities have previously denied such accusations.

About 40 percent of Uganda’s 40 million people use the internet, according to data from the regulating body Uganda Communications Commission. Facebook and WhatsApp are widely used in Uganda and many other African countries.

Digital advocacy group the World Wide Web Foundation says data costs in Africa are among the world’s highest, a fact blamed for slow internet penetration and limited use even for those connected.

“Data right now is essential in nearly every worker’s day to day business, a responsible government should be lowering its price not the opposite,” said Diana Taremwa, a charity worker in the capital Kampala.

Critics of Museveni, 73, say his government employs a wide array of tactics to limit political debate, trample on civil rights and stifle the opposition.

Museveni has won a series of elections but his opponents say these have been rigged in his favour. His main rival, Kizza Besigye, has been jailed dozens of times since he first run against him in 2001.

Some opposition critics have in the past been charged for allegedly insulting him in posts on Facebook.

In the last presidential election in 2016, authorities also blocked access to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp saying the platforms would be used by the opposition to mobilise protests. ($1 = 3,770.0000 Ugandan shillings)

(Source: Reuters)

3 years and 8 months of effective activity of the 3rd mobile operator in Cameroon that was launched on September 2014, Nexttel, a public limited company with Viettel SA owning 70% and Bestinver Cameroon owning 30% of the shares is in shambles.  The social climate in Viettel Cameroon (Nexttel) is indeed not the best.

In recent days, employees of the company have been on strike over unpaid wages. An informant who filed in this report pointed out that the strike action is due to the refusal of the general manager Nguyen Duc Quang to disburse money meant for salaries.

The situation became very intractable with many inside sources suggesting that the chairman of the board, Baba Ahmadou Danpullo was participating in the day-to-day running of the business and had reportedly instructed his former banker Moïse Bayi to disrupt the smooth functioning of the company with the support of some workers.

Danpullo

Our source also hinted that tension is currently mounting between the Danpullo Nexttel gang and the Vietnamese General Manager. There are under-the-table talks that the President Biya acolyte who also moonlights as a member of the Central Committee of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate wants to acquire 51% of the company shares without going through the legal process.

We understand the aim is to chase out the Vietnamese and install his man, Moïse Bayi who is presently deputy manager in charge of Human Resources as Nexttel’s General Manager. Baba Ahmadou Danpullo has control over the Cameroonian judiciary and the political system so whatever Danpullo wants, Danpullo gets.

This issue can be traced right back to the beginning of this company looking at a series of problems between Viettel SA and Bestinver Cameroon.  In 2013 during the technical installations phase, there was a strike which lasted about 6 months that involved profit shares.

In 2014 pan African news magazine Jeune Afrique published a report ” Cameroon’s two deputy chiefs, Moïse Bayi and Haman Oumar, accuse their boss, the Vietnamese Vu Khanh Duy (former general manager of Nexttel), of locking  down management.

In 2015, there was a massive arrest and repatriation of Vietnamese workers in Cameroon which was followed by constant refusal to grant them working permits on lame and ridiculous reasons that Viettel had promised to create 5 000 direct and indirect jobs. And in 2018 – Vietnamese coming to replace other staffs are refused contracts and have been receiving threats. For how long will the Francophone Cameroun Billionaire continue to treat his partners this way?

By Ngwa Stephanus B

The reporter is not a staff writer with the Cameroon Concord News Group

Sub-Saharan African nations are at growing risk of debt distress because of heavy borrowing and gaping deficits, despite an overall uptick in economic growth, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.

The sober assessment came as African countries continue to tap international debt markets and issue record levels of debt in foreign currencies, spurred on by insatiable investor demand for yields.

“What really we’re concerned about is the pace of increase, rather than the average,” IMFAfrica Director Abebe Aemro Selassie told Reuters at the launch of its economic outlook for the region in Accra.

“What we’re calling for right now is that those countries are going to need to go through fiscal consolidation,” he said, adding that oil producers and other resource-dependent economies were seeking the sharpest growth in their debt loads.

The Fund projected the rate of economic expansion would rise to 3.4 percent this year, up from 2.8 percent in 2017, boosted by global growth and higher commodity prices.

Slower growth in South Africa and Nigeria – the continent’s two largest economies – weighed on the region-wide average, but the IMF expects growth to pick up in around two-thirds of African nations. However, under current policies, that rate is expected to plateau below 4 percent over the medium term.

GROWTH SEEN SLOWING

Meanwhile, around 40 percent of low-income countries in the region are now in debt distress or at high risk of it, the IMF report said. And refinancing that debt could soon become more costly.

“The current growth spurt in advanced economies is expected to taper off, and the borrowing terms for the region’s frontier markets will likely become less favourable … which could coincide with higher refinancing needs for many countries across the region,” it said.

African governments issued a record $7.5 billion in sovereign bonds last year, 10 times more than in 2016. And they have issued or plan to issue over $11 billion in additional debt in the first half of 2018 alone, the report said.

Foreign currency debt increased by 40 percent from 2010-13 to 2017 and now accounts for about 60 percent of the region’s total public debt on average, IMF data showed. Average interest payments, meanwhile, increased from 4 percent of expenditures in 2013 to 12 percent in 2017.

Six countries – Chad, Eritrea, Mozambique, Congo Republic, South Sudan and Zimbabwe – were judged to be in debt distress at the end of last year. And the IMF’s ratings for Zambia and Ethiopia were changed from moderate to “high risk of debt distress.”

The IMF conceded that Africa’s enormous needs will continue to demand heavy investments to build infrastructure and social development. But to do so while avoiding the risk of a debt trap, the continent, which currently has the lowest revenue-to-GDP ratio in the world, will need to become more self-reliant.

“Borrowing to finance spending is part of the macroeconomic policy tool kits which all countries use,” Selassie said. “But over the medium to long-term they have to rely more on domestic revenues, tax revenues to address their development spending needs.”

REUTERS

Nestlé has inaugurated a production unit for its range of Nido fortified powdered milk in Douala, Cameroon.

The new facility will create 12 additional jobs and has the potential to create 48 more in the coming years.

It will have an annual production capacity of more than 5,500 tons and will manufacture Nido Forti Choco as well as continue to package Nido powdered milk.

Nestlé said the production is intended for both the domestic market as well as for export to Gabon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and Equatorial Guinea.

Launched in 2016 in Cameroon, Nido Forti Choco is made from milk powder, cocoa and sugar. It is enriched with essential micronutrients such as iron, zinc and calcium.

Nestlé Cameroon country manager Thomas Caso said: “Nestlé has been improving the quality of life and contributing to a healthier future for the Cameroonian population for more than 50 years. As evidenced by this investment, we believe in the socio-economic development of the country and we want to continue to be a key partner in the growth of the local agro-industry.

“We will continue to explore with our partners and the relevant authorities ways to increase our local production and local sourcing of raw materials and packaging materials.”

Ernest Gwaboubou, Cameroon minister for mines, industry and technological development, said: “This event demonstrates a strong public-private partnership within the context of industrialisation of Cameroon, which will create employment and foster economic development.”

Nestlé has been present in Cameroon since 1965 and started local production in 1981. The company employs more than 450 people in the country.

Source: foodbev.com

• Upgrading the RN15 over 135 km between Lena and Tibati
• Construction of Provincial Road 18 over 106 km between Olama and Bigambo
• Total value: €214 million

VINCI subsidiary Sogea-Satom has been awarded two major road building projects in Cameroon for the Public Works Ministry.

The first contract, valued at €112 million, covers upgrading a 135 km section on the RN15 between Lena and Tibati in the centre of the country and 6.7 km of roads in the town of Tibati. The works consist, notably, of flood-proofing earthworks and construction of a 7m wide carriageway and shoulders, drainage structures and five bridges, together with safety, signage and environmental protection structures. The new corridor is 150 km shorter than the existing road arteries. It will boost trade and connections with Chad and Nigeria.

The second contract, valued at €102.4 million, concerns construction of a 106 km road section between Olama and Bigambo which will be part of the future Provincial Road 18 (total length 271 km south-west of Yaoundé). The works include construction of five 10 to 20 m-span bridges, 13 km of urban roads and upgrading of 20 km of rural tracks and concrete drainage channels. This artery is primarily intended to take heavy vehicle freight traffic from the new deep-water port of Kribi to Yaoundé. The project also has a social component representing 10% of the value of the contract. It provides for construction of classrooms, rural centres for young people and women, boreholes, wells and playing areas, together with construction of community and health centres along the road.

Delivery of the two projects is scheduled for May 2020 (Lena – Tibati road) and June 2022 ( Olama-Bigambo road).

These projects will mobilise substantial human resources on the local level. Sogea-Satom Cameroon organised its first job forum in Douala and Yaoundé in January 2018 to recruit more than 100 new employees. Some 90% of Sogea-Satom employees in Africa are local hires.

Thanks to its numerous activities, the Cameroon economy is the most diversified in Central Africa. VINCI has completed many projects in the country, notably a water treatment plant in Yaoundé (2014), a runway upgrade for the international airport in Douala (2017) and, more recently, the dual road-rail bridge over the Wouri river in Douala, the first major engineering structure built by VINCI on the African continent.

Source: globalnewswire.com