Headline News

Biya regime does not publish all budget documents as required by law

2, May 2023

Biya regime does not publish all budget documents as required by law 0

A report by Cameroon’s General Budget Directorate (DGB) found that the government has not published all budgetary, accounting and financial information for FY2022 as required by law.

Of the 57 documents expected, DGB counted 42 (73.48%) published on its website and only 6 on the website of the Ministry of Finance. “The main shortcomings identified regarding the publication timetable of public finance statistics during FY2022 remain essentially: the non-updating of the websites of some administrations; the lack of publication of documents on dedicated sites despite multiple reminders; the slow flow of information,” explains the DGB.

However, “the publication of comprehensive information on public finances is a legal obligation that also constitutes an educational action of the State towards the citizens,” the Budget Directorate pointed out. This obligation is contained in the law of July 11, 2018, on the code of transparency and good governance in public finance management in Cameroon. Article 47 states that “the administration shall take all necessary measures to publish information that covers all budgetary and extra-budgetary activities, within the time limits set by regulation.”

In line with this provision, the Ministry of Finance sets the timetable for the release of public finance information at the beginning of each fiscal year. For FY 2023, the DGB announces that quarterly reports on the monitoring of this calendar will be produced and awareness among the departments concerned will be increased.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Cameroon’s Clementine Nkweta-Salami is new UN Deputy Special Representative for Sudan

2, May 2023

Cameroon’s Clementine Nkweta-Salami is new UN Deputy Special Representative for Sudan 0

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Clementine Nkweta-Salami of Cameroon as his Deputy Special Representative for Sudan with the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS).  She will also serve as the United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan.  Ms. Nkweta-Salami succeeds Khardiata Lo N’Diaye of Senegal, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for her dedication.

Ms. Nkweta-Salami brings to the position, 30 years of experience in humanitarian affairs and protection, mainly in field settings.  For the past three years, she has served as Director of the Regional Bureau for the East, Horn and Great Lakes Regions of Africa of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), where she is responsible for providing strategic direction, support and oversight of 11 UNHCR country offices.  Prior to this, she was UNHCR Representative to Ethiopia, Regional Representative to Southern Africa, Representative to Burundi and Head of Inspection in the Inspector General’s Office at UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva.  She has also served in field positions with UNHCR in the United Republic of Tanzania, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Ms. Nkweta-Salami holds a masters degree in corporate and commercial law from University College, University of London, a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom and a Bachelor of Social Science degree in sociology and political science from the University of Ottawa.  Ms. Nkweta-Salami is a qualified barrister and member of the English and Cameroon Bar.

Source: UN Press

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Amba fighters kill 4 officers in Matouke

2, May 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Amba fighters kill 4 officers in Matouke 0

At least four gendarmerie officers were killed and two others seriously wounded in an attack by Southern Cameroons Self Defense Group in Matouke, a village located in Mbanga in the Littoral bordering the South West Region, Cameroon’s Defense Ministry said Monday.

The deadly attack took place on the sidelines of activities celebrating International Labour Day on Monday, May 1, 2023, in Matouke.

According to a military source contacted by Cameroon Intelligence Report, elements of the security and defense forces in a joint detachment were ambushed by suspected Amba fighters in the district of Mbanga on the Penda-Mboko road where there is a joint security post.

Three of the four officers killed were identified as Gendarme Major Marré, Sergeant Djoni and Sergeant Assomo. At the time of filing this report news filtered that Ndum Acha Arrison, a motorcycle rider had died of wounds sustained in the attack.

The Ambazonian fighters reportedly made away with four weapons.

The wounded, which are being treated at the military hospital in Douala-Bonanjo, were visited by the Governor of the Littoral Region, Samuel Dieudonné Ivaha Diboua.

More than 10,000 people including some 4000 Cameroon government army soldiers have been killed and nearly 2 million displaced since the start of the Southern Cameroons crisis seven years ago.

Violence committed by both Cameroon government army soldiers and Amba fighters has affected academic institutions all over Southern Cameroons.

The war is also affecting the Littoral and the West, which are neighboring regions to British Southern Cameroons.

By Nelly Epupa with files from Fon Lawrence

World Bank Group Launches Business Ready Project

1, May 2023

World Bank Group Launches Business Ready Project 0

The World Bank Group has begun work to assess the business and investment climate in up to 180 economies under its flagship Business Ready project—a key instrument of its new strategy to facilitate private investment, generate employment, and improve productivity to help countries accelerate development in inclusive and sustainable ways.

Business Ready improves upon and replaces the World Bank Group’s earlier Doing Business project. It reflects a more balanced and transparent approach toward evaluating a country’s business and investment climate—one that has been shaped by recommendations from experts from within and outside the World Bank Group, including governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations. The first annual Business Ready report, covering 54 economies, will be published in the Spring of 2024.

Today, the World Bank Group published two key documents: the Business Ready Manual and Guide, specifying the detailed protocols and safeguards it has put in place to ensure the integrity of the assessments; and the Business Ready Methodology Handbook, detailing the project’s indicators and scoring methodology. Data collection on the business environment of the initial 54 economies is being done through extensive consultations with regulatory experts and nationally representative World Bank Enterprise Surveys, collected by competitively selected survey companies.

“The World Bank Group is bringing back a fuller and sharper measure of the investment climate of countries—something that is badly needed in a global economy in the midst of a generalized slowdown,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. “Governments that do more to make their economies business-ready will do better in reviving private investment, creating jobs, and quickening the transition to cleaner energy.”

The World Bank Group has long been a leader in spurring business-regulatory reforms across the world. Its assessments of the business-enabling environment worldwide helped spur nearly 4,000 regulatory reforms in developing and developed economies over the past two decades. They also significantly advanced academic research in this area, resulting in 4,000 peer-reviewed research papers and at least 10,000 working papers. Countries, moreover, often use these assessments to shape their development strategies.

“The ‘Business Ready’ project represents a new approach to assessing the business and investment climates,” said Norman Loayza, Director of the World Bank’s Indicators Group, which leads the project. “The ‘Business Ready’ approach aims to establish a better balance between the ease of conducting a business and the broader implications for society as a whole. It gives a more positive role for governments, advocating for better public services for businesses. In addition to experts’ assessments, it includes direct information from entrepreneurs and managers on their experience navigating the economy’s business environment.”

Business Ready focuses on 10 topics covering the lifecycle of a firm in the course of starting, operating, or closing or reorganizing its activities: Business Entry, Business Location, Utility Services, Labor, Financial Services, International Trade, Taxation, Dispute Resolution, Market Competition, and Business Insolvency. Over the next three years, the project will grow to cover about 180 economies worldwide annually, starting with 54 economies in 2023-24, 120 economies in 2024-25, and reaching 180 economies in 2025-26.

The project’s objective is reflected in its name—to make each country’s economic environment ready for a dynamic private sector. The name highlights the fact that economies exist in different stages of readiness, and that governments play a key role in creating a business environment that is conducive for sustainable development.

Transparency will be a key feature of Business Ready’s safeguards for data integrity. All information collected by the project—raw granular data, scores, as well as the calculations used to obtain the scores—will be made publicly available on the project website. Moreover, all results presented in the reports will be replicable using straightforward toolkits available on the website.

Rescued Southern Cameroonian migrants won’t be allowed to reenter Antigua

1, May 2023

Rescued Southern Cameroonian migrants won’t be allowed to reenter Antigua 0

Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Gaston Browne has confirmed reports that migrants from Cameroon who were rescued from a recent boat disaster, will not be allowed to reenter the country.

“Why bring them back when they are likely to smuggle out of the country again,” said the Prime Minister in an article written in his own publication. 

His comment confirmed a recent statement from the government of St Kitts Nevis which indicated that Antigua and Barbuda had reneged on its previous promise to accept the refugees back into the twin-island nation.

Over one month ago – on March 28, 14 migrants, along with two Antiguans, were rescued after their boat capsized in water offshore St Kitts en route from Antigua to St Thomas, in the United States Virgin Islands.

“The government of St Kitts and Nevis continues to pursue workable and diplomatic solutions as it is duty bound so to do,” the statement from the neighbouring country’s Ministry of National Security added.

Meanwhile, all but one of nine people who fled the detention facility outside Basseterre on Thursday have since been located. 

They were among some of the survivors of fishing vessel La Belle Michelle, which ran into difficulty while dangerously overcrowded with around 30 passengers.

Three bodies were pulled from the sea but more than a dozen more still missing and presumed dead.

They were among hundreds of Cameroonian refugees fleeing conflict back home who arrived in Antigua and Barbuda late last year on charter flights from Nigeria.

Source: Caribbean Loopnews

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Singers Embark on Caravan for Peace

1, May 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Singers Embark on Caravan for Peace 0

In Cameroon, hundreds of singers are using their voices to call for a cease-fire between the military and separatist forces in restive western regions. The conflict has killed thousands of people and displaced 750,000 since 2017.

In the courtyard of the Yaoundé city council, the singers performed songs calling for an end to the killing and destruction of property in the restive Northwest and Southwest regions.

Among the several hundred civilians listening to the singers is Dieudonne Bitam, a 24-year-old university student. Bitam said the songs speak to the conscience of Cameroonians who live in fear and uncertainty.

The peace singers are pulling in crowds because their music includes traditional rhythms from all the regions of Cameroon, he said, so the songs appeal to people of all generations and of different social, cultural, religious and professional backgrounds.

Similar events, organized by Cameroonian Artists for Peace, will take place in towns and villages across the central African state, the organizers say.

In the songs, the artists ask communities in safer localities to accommodate displaced persons. They also request fighters and government troops in conflict areas to observe a cease-fire so peace can return.

The singers say they will not travel to towns and villages prone to regular separatist attacks. They say singers and choral groups in western towns and villages where clashes are ongoing should sing in public squares when possible.

Ateh Francis, board chair of the Cameroon Musical Art Corporation SONACAM, said the singers are tired of the bloodshed, rape, maiming, stealing and abduction for ransom in the two western regions where separatist forces are fighting to set up an English-speaking state.

He said SONACAM assisted the artists in their peace caravan.

“These songs that call for peace and reconciliation are released by artists who are expressing concerns on the sufferings of the people and hoping to touch hearts,” he said. “The artists themselves are living and suffering with the people and decide to put it in song, hoping to touch the hearts of the government [officials] and the boys [fighters] to sit down and solve this problem, which is bringing untold suffering to our people.”

The large-scale appeal for peace by singers in Cameroon is the first since separatist crisis degenerated to an armed conflict in the central African state in 2017.

The peace singers say they rely on personal contributions and assistance from well-wishers to organize the musical peace caravans.

The governors of Cameroon’s restive northwest and southwest regions say they support all efforts to restore peace but insist that fighters who do not surrender and drop their weapons will be killed. Separatists also say they support the initiative, but fighters will continue their struggle for self-determination.

The separatist conflict broke out in 2016 when Anglophone Cameroonians protested what they said was discrimination by the Francophone majority.

The U.N. says fighting has since killed at least 3,500 people and displaced at least three-quarters of a million.

The singers are performing songs in both English and French, hoping to appeal to both sides of the conflict.

Source: VOA

The 20-year-old Anglophone who developed an AI Assistant to help students affected by war & school closures

1, May 2023

The 20-year-old Anglophone who developed an AI Assistant to help students affected by war & school closures 0

Mbah Javis was in his final year of high school in Batibo in Momo Division in the Northwest Region in 2016 when war broke out in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions, the Northwest and Southwest.

The war shattered lives, businesses, and institutions; his school was no exception.

Mbah, who was one year away from writing the Cameroon General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level, had to stay home for two years due to battles between the Cameroon military and separatist fighters.

“There were no signs of classes resuming in Batibo, so I moved to Bamenda, the Northwest regional capital, which was relatively calm. I enrolled in Government Bilingual High School Ntamulung, where I obtained my GCE O’Level and GCE Advanced Level,” Mbah explained.

The 20-year-old was later admitted to study computer science at the University of Buea in the Southwest and, while there, started looking for ways to solve the problem he had encountered in 2016.

The outcome was Dimoly, an AI assistance study app.

“My motivation to build Dimoly came from my experience. I couldn’t go to school every day due to insecurities. At the moment, the situation is not any better, and a lot of students are unable to go to school and attend classes, so I was prompted to build something that students can use from anywhere at any time to study and prepare for exams,” said Mbah.

The startup’s name comes from two different words: didactic and moly. Didactic means designed or intended to teach people easily, and moly is a magical herb in Greek mythology). Mbah put the two together to create his startup’s name, Dimoly.

“This means the app is designed to teach people in a way that will make them understand things like magic,” said Mbah.

According to Mbah, Dimoly can provide accurate answers if the user asks a question with enough information, including the specific subject or topic the question are coming from.

“So basically, the more information the user provides, the clearer the answer the AI assistant gives,” he said.

At fourteen, Mbah began teaching himself computer programming in C++. Six years later, he has worked for several companies in Cameroon and abroad as a software engineer, building software products mainly for mobile and the web, with some having artificial intelligence functions.

In 2019/2020, Mbah was a finalist at Africa’s annual Google Code, a programming contest. In 2022, he was also among the winners of the Cameroon ICT Innovation Week challenge, organised by Cameroon’s Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.

It took him four months to build Dimoly.

Since the war is ongoing, the Cameroon government often groups students from schools with unstable security into accommodation centres where security is guaranteed during national exams.

This means that even if a child cannot attend classes with Dimoly, they can still prepare.

“After downloading the app from the Google Play Store, a student needs an email account to complete their registration before using it,” said Mbah.

“Currently, the app has over 6300 registered users. The feedback from them has been great. They say they enjoy using it a lot,” added Mbah.

Keming Thanks Njoko is a secondary teacher in the Northwest, one of Cameroon’s embattled regions. In 2022, he came across Dimoly and was thrilled about the app’s features.

“You know, not everybody is perfect. A student may ask a tricky question when I am teaching, which requires me to do some sensitive thinking. I will give room for other students to answer while I consult Dimoly for an answer.

It has made my teaching so flexible that when a student asks a question, even if I can’t explain instantly, I know I will go to Dimoly, and I will have something to reply to the student and not ask the student to take it as an assignment as some teachers always do,” said Keming.

Aside from using the app to help his students comprehend subjects easily, Keming has since been going to other schools to promote and encourage the use of the app to improve learning.

“When I found the app, I saw something that I had never seen in others. I was so amazed by it, and the thing that caught my attention was the artificial intelligence of the application. When you search for something there, it is highly specific to your level of education, and the response is automatic,” he said.

According to him, his students have also greatly benefited from using Dimoly. He said the app would easily bail them out when they encountered a challenge in class.

Njuabe Favour is one of the users preparing to write the country’s GCE Advanced Level examinations next year.

The 15-year-old said Dimoly provides her with past GCE questions, which she uses to answer and prepare for exams in school.

“What I like most about the app is that it can answer all school-related questions and best simplifies the answers to my question so that I can understand better. The AI assistant is like a home teacher to me,” she said. “I have been using this app for the past three months or so, and it has been of great help to me.”

Dimoly was also able to help her create a study schedule and study flashcards.

Mbah said he was happy to see that Dimoly was already solving real learning problems among Cameroonian students, especially those in conflict-affected areas.

“With Dimoly, learning is much easier,” he said.

Culled from Bellanaija

Yaoundé: Biya meets with Faustin-Archange

1, May 2023

Yaoundé: Biya meets with Faustin-Archange 0

The President of the Central African Republic Faustin-Archange Touadéra has held talks with BIYA at the Unity Palace.

For two hours, the two leaders, who were meeting again just a few weeks after the 15th ordinary CEMAC summit reportedly, exchanged views on the security situation in the CEMAC region.

Cameroon Concord News understands that no declaration was made at the end of the talks.

BIYA, who handed over the presidency of the CEMAC Heads of State Conference to his Central African counterpart on 17 March, did not miss the opportunity to reiterate his support for the smooth running of the Community.

By Rita Akana in Yaoundé

Spain: Barack Obama and friends surprise Barcelona restaurant

30, April 2023

Spain: Barack Obama and friends surprise Barcelona restaurant 0

A former president, a world-famous Hollywood director and a rock music icon walk into a restaurant.

It sounds like the setup to a joke, but staff at Amar restaurant in Barcelona witnessed just that on Thursday night.

Employees were left in shock when 44th US president Barack Obama, director Steven Spielberg and musician Bruce Springsteen walked in unannounced.

Chef Rafa Zafra said Amar had been suggested by Spanish-American celebrity restaurateur José Andrés.

“They came recommended by José Andrés, who has a very close relationship with Obama,” Mr Zafra told Spanish radio.

Mr Zafra said José Andrés told him that the booking was important. It was then that he realised that Mr Obama and his wife Michelle were in the city to attend a Springsteen concert, as was Spielberg.

Staff member Pol Perello uploaded a photo of them posing with wait staff and chefs to Instagram with the comment: “The pleasure this job brings you!”

“We gave them oysters, shellfish and fish from Roses, my classic – the caviar bikini – a little bit of everything… and super grateful!” Mr Zafra said.

Accompanied by security detail, the Obamas and Spielberg used Friday to visit some of Barcelona’s most famous sights, such as the Sagrada Familia basilica and the Picasso museum.

Springsteen’s E Street band began their European leg of their tour on Friday at the city’s Olympic Stadium.

The former president first met the rock legend on the presidential campaign trail in 2008. In 2021, they hosted the podcast Renegades: Born in the USA.

Source: BBC

Over 400 civilians dead as rival forces continue to fight over control of Sudan

29, April 2023

Over 400 civilians dead as rival forces continue to fight over control of Sudan 0

Gunfire and heavy artillery fire persisted Saturday in parts of Sudan’s capital Khartoum, residents said, despite the extension of a cease-fire between the country’s two top generals, whose battle for power has killed hundreds and sent thousands fleeing for their lives.

The civilian death toll jumped Saturday to 411 people, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, which monitors casualties. The fighting has wounded another 2,023 civilians so far, the group added, although the true toll is expected to be much higher. In the city of Genena, the provincial capital of war-ravaged West Darfur, intensified violence has killed 89 people. Fighters have moved into homes and taken over stores and hospitals as they battle in the densely populated streets, the syndicate said.

Khartoum, a city of some 5 million people, has been transformed into a front line in the grinding conflict between Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, the commander of Sudan’s military, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces. The outbreak of violence has dashed once-euphoric hopes for a democratic transition in Sudan after a popular uprising helped oust former dictator Omar al-Bashir.

Foreign countries continued to evacuate their citizens while thousands of Sudanese fled across borders. Britain said it was ending its evacuation flights Saturday, after demand for spots on the planes had declined. The United Arab Emirates announced Saturday it had started evacuating its citizens along with nationals of 16 other countries.

Over 50,000 refugees — mostly women and children — have crossed over to Chad, Egypt, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, the United Nations said, raising fears of wider instability in the region. Ethnic fighting and turmoil has scarred South Sudan and the Central African Republic for years while a 2021 coup has derailed Chad’s own democratic transition.

Those who escape Khartoum face more obstacles on their route to safety. The overland journey to Port Sudan, where ships then evacuate people via the Red Sea, has proven long and risky. Hatim el-Madani, a former journalist, said that paramilitary fighters were stopping refugees at roadblocks outside Khartoum, demanding they hand over their phones and valuables.

“There’s an outlaw, bandit-like nature to the RSF,” he said, referring to Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces. “They don’t have a supply line in place. That could get worse in the coming days.”

Airlifts from the country have also posed challenges, with a Turkish evacuation plane even hit by gunfire outside Khartoum on Friday.

On Saturday — despite a cease-fire extended under heavy international pressure early Friday — clashes continued around the presidential palace, headquarters of the state broadcaster and a military base in Khartoum, residents said. The battles sent thick columns of black smoke billowing over the city skyline.

In a few areas near the capital, including in Omdurman, some reported that shops were reopening as the scale of fighting dwindled. But in other areas, terrified residents hunkered down reported explosions thundering around them and fighters ransacking houses.

Now in its third week, the fighting has left swaths of Khartoum without electricity and running water. The Sudanese Health Ministry put the latest overall death toll at 528, with 4,500 wounded.

Those sheltering at home are running out of food and basic supplies. Residents in the city of Omdurman, west of Khartoum, have been waiting at least three days to get fuel — complicating their escape plans.

The U.N. relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, said that U.N. offices in Khartoum, as well as the cities of Genena and Nyala in Darfur had been attacked and looted. Genena’s main hospital was also leveled in the fighting, Sudan’s health ministry said.

“This is unacceptable — and prohibited under international law,” Griffiths said.

Over the past 15 days, the generals have failed to deal a decisive blow to the other in their struggle for control of Africa’s third largest nation. The military has appeared to have the upper hand in the fighting, with its monopoly on air power, but it has been impossible to confirm its claims of advances.

“Soon, the Sudanese state with its well-grounded institutions will rise as victorious, and attempts to hijack our country will be aborted forever,” the Sudanese military said Saturday.

Both sides in the conflict have a long history of human rights abuses. The RSF was born out of the Janjaweed militias, which were accused of widespread atrocities when the government deployed them to put down a rebellion in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the early 2000s.

A unit of Sudan’s armed forces, known as the Central Reserve Police, have been sanctioned by the United Staets for grave human rights violations against Sudan’s pro-democracy protesters.

Accusations of rape, torture and other abuses against demonstrators carried out by the unit first surfaced in 2021, after Burhan and Dagalo joined forces in a military coup that ousted a civilian government. The Sudanese Interior Ministry confirmed the deployment of the Central Reserve Police in Khartoum on Saturday, posting photos of the fighters riding with heavy machine guns mounted on pickup trucks.

Former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who was ousted in the 2021 coup, appealed to the international community from a conference in Nairobi, Kenya, to push for an immediate halt to the conflict. He warned that a full-blown civil war in the strategically located country would have consequences not just for Sudan but for the world.

“God forbid if Sudan is to reach a proper civil war … it is a huge country and very diverse … it would be a nightmare for the world,” he said.

But the generals have so far rejected attempts at a compromise. Regional mediators have been unable to travel to Khartoum because of the chaotic fighting.

African Union Chairperson Moussa Faki said he would nonetheless try to send peacekeepers to the country.

“I’m ready to go there myself, even by road,” Faki said. “We ask the two generals to create the conditions for us to go to Khartoum.”

Source: AP

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