Business

It is now possible for Afriland First Bank clients that hold MTN Mobile Money accounts, to consult their bank balance from their mobile phones, and to proceed to financial transactions between their bank and mobile accounts. This has been made possible with the Mobile Account Connected or MAC technology, a service just launched by Cameroon’s banking market and mobile telephony respective leaders.

With MAC, Afriland First Bank “completes its multichannel project by migrating to mobile phones, and the development of this project will increase the use of banking services in Cameroon and the Central Africa sub-region.”

According to experts, in countries such as Cameroon with a low use of banking services (less than 20% in Cameroon), mobile telephony whose penetration has been estimated to 80% in the country, can considerably boost access to these services. In Kenya for example, the M-Pesa mobile money service, makes about 40% of the global bank penetration rate which is about 70% overall.    

It should be remembered that, MAC, “highly secured service” according to its promoters, joins a similar service which was launched in Cameroon on July 9, 2015, by Ecobank and Orange Cameroon.

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Ngwa Bertrand

10.Sep.2015

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The Director General of Small and Medium size Enterprises Promotion Agency, Badga Jean Marie Louis says software financial management is necessary for the growth of small scale businesses. He was speaking yesterday 7th September 2015 in Yaounde during an opening ceremony of a two week refresher course organised at the National Advanced School of Technical Engineering -Polytech.

The refresher course targetted close to 30 student engineers who are presently being drilled on software finacial management and online marketing after which they will be issued certificates. These students shall be expected to serve as facilitators on financial software and online marketing to 100 small scale business firms during an upcoming workshop. During the ceremony, it was revealed that among the over 100,000 small and medium size businesses in Cameroon, just 25% is advanced in computer technology. 

It is as a result of this that Mr. Badga Jean Marie Louis saw the need for small scale businesses in Cameroon to be schooled on software financial management and online marketing.These selected business firms according to the Director General is just a sample to the thousand small scale businesses that are yet to be trained. The training according to him can help expand small scale business in the country if the knowledge is utilised.

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Ngwa Bertrand

09.Sep.2015

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The opening of the Douala office is part of an ongoing major expansion for the law firm Centurion’s ‘go-to’ pan-African oil, gas and corporate law expertise position the group for fast growth.The size of the Cameroonian market and the durability of its economy provide impetus for the move. Centurion Law Group is continuing its pan-African expansion with the opening of an office in Cameroon this month. The group will set up operations in Douala, Cameroon’s largest city and the wealthiest business hub in Central Africa. Centurion will extend to clients a range of services in all its practice areas, including arbitration and commercial litigation, corporate and finance law, labor and employment, and oil and gas. The office represents the first move by an international law firm into Cameroon. The Douala office will be staffed with eight lawyers from Cameroon with academic and professional credentials from North America, the UK, France, Nigeria and Cameroon.

Centurion has aggressive growth plans in Cameroon, fuelled by a resurgent oil and gas industry and a resilient economy. Extensive experience in oil and gas has underpinned the group’s emergence as one of Africa’s top ‘go-to’ law firms. Its energy practice, with expertise in contracts, financing, privatization and compliance with government regulations and legislation, has been a key reference point in large oil and gas markets like Equatorial Guinea, Congo Brazzaville, Chad, Ghana, Gabon, Nigeria and Angola. “Centurion Law Group’s entry into Cameroon is representative of our firm’s Africa-wide growth strategy,” said NJ Ayuk, the CEO of Centurion Law Group. “Our aggressive entry is to serve the CEMAC community and signifies our continued growth in the region, thanks our loyal energy industry and corporate clients. We have come to serve our oil and gas clients who are presently operating here or seek to enter the market. 

As in our other markets, we endeavor to create an enabling business environment and promote the rule of law.” Following years of systemic production declines, Cameroon enjoyed an increase in oil output in 2014. The market is benefiting from a new gas law and a 2014 licensing round that attracted major interest from foreign players. A ramp up in gas production has freed up plentiful reserves for investments in industrialization and electricity generation. Oil and gas are once again the cornerstones for growth in Central Africa’s largest economy.

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Ngwa Bertrand

08.Sep.2015

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Disgruntled passengers of the national airline, Camair-co attempted to burn down the building hosting the regional office in Yaounde earlier today. The passengers apparently dissatisfied with the repeated cancellation of their flights, domestic and international used old tyres and started a fire that was aimed at the Yaounde Camair-co office. It needed a heavy police intervention to avert the situation.

For several weeks, Camair-co, passengers including some players of our junior football national team who came holidaying in Cameroon have been unable to make their journey back to their respective European countries. Among the passengers are students, workers, businessmen all complaining about the deliberate silence of the communication department of Camair-co. 

“The passengers have not been told anything, they do not know if they will ever travel, staying in the country brings along additional costs” noted our chief economic reporter in Yaounde. We now have intelligence that Camair-co on paper has 14 planes. But in reality, the company had all along operated with just 5 hired aircrafts. When we asked a senior cadre at Camair-co an economic question on the whereabouts of the other 9 planes, we were given a political answer.

The management of Camair-co is now a tangled tale, a combined comedy and tragedy of errors involving former senior officials of the country now in prison. In June 2014, President Paul Biya called Nana Sandjo to head Camair-co. Ever since then, things have grown from bad to worse.

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Ngwa Bertrand

07.Sep.2015

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The Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation in partnership with the National Committee for Technology Development (CNDT) has organised a two-day sensitisation workshop to discuss on measures of reducing energy waste in public buildings. The meeting which took place from 1st to 2nd September 2015 in Yaounde brought together experts from the electricity sector and representatives of Government Ministries and small and medium-size enterprises. The participants proposed methods to curb electricity waste as the country seeks better ways of inclusive energy by 2035. 

The experts called on users of public buildings to adopt cost-cutting measures including turning off electrical appliances like computers, air conditioners and lighting systems when not in use. A facilitator at the meeting and Head of Department of Renewable Energy at the Sahel Institute of the University of Maroua, Dr Noël Djongyang, emphasised that Cameroonians should start using low-consuming appliances. At the end of the two-day seminar, participants acquired useful information on the importance of environmentally energy-friendly buildings since they in turn cut electricity waste and cost.

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Ngwa Bertrand

04.Sep.2015

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Illicit trafficking of diamonds from Central African Republic into neighbouring Cameroon is helping finance the continuation of a nearly three-year conflict, an expert panel that monitors U.N. sanctions said in a confidential report. Central African Republic (CAR) descended into chaos in March 2013 when predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power, triggering reprisals by "anti-balaka" Christian militias who drove tens of thousands of Muslims from the south in a de facto partition of the landlocked country.

Although rival armed groups agreed to a peace accord in May, the conflict has continued at a lower intensity, and a transitional government has been unable to assert its authority over all of the vast, mineral-rich territory. The export of diamonds from CAR was banned in May 2013 by the Kimberley Process, which represents 81 countries, including the United States, the European Union, Russia, China and all major diamond-producing nations. The group was formed to prevent so-called blood diamonds from funding conflicts. 

In its interim report to the CAR sanctions committee, the U.N. Security Council's panel of experts said the illicit trade in diamonds is still funding major players in the conflict and increasingly involves neighbouring countries such as Cameroon and Chad. The panel has not previously highlighted the role of Cameroon in the conflict diamond trade. But the report does not directly implicate Cameroon authorities in the trade. "Despite a decline in violence by anti-balaka elements in the southwest, some anti-balaka continue to be involved in the illicit exploitation of diamonds," the panel said in the report, seen by Reuters. "Diamond mines in the (sub-prefecture) of Amada Gaza (Mambere-Kadei province) are violently contested between anti-balaka and armed Peul," the experts said.

Many Muslims from the Peul ethnic group were displaced by the war.The panel has said that all sides in the conflict profit from the trade in diamonds. It estimates that some 140,000 carats of diamonds, valued at $24 million, have been smuggled out of the country since the 2013 ban on the export of CAR's rough diamonds. Its latest report said that diamonds from Amada Gaza were suspected to have been trafficked through Gbiti, a Cameroon border town. Other examples of cases the panel is investigating include diamond trafficking through the Cameroonian town of Kenzou, including a large, 40-carat stone.

Another involves the seizure of 160 carats of undocumented diamonds worth around $28,000 in Yaounde, Cameroon in April. These diamonds, the panel said, had been carried from Kenzou by two Indian nationals who recently visited Bangui, CAR's capital. Cameroon's U.N. Mission did not respond to a request for comment. Armed anti-balaka elements, the panel said, are involved in illicit diamond exploitation at a number of mining sites. The panel of experts recommended that the Security Council urge transitional CAR authorities to suspend diamond-trading houses that purchase the gems from areas "under direct or indirect control of armed groups." It also said the council should urge neighbouring countries not to violate CAR's borders.

MINUSCA, the U.N. peacekeeping force in CAR, was deployed in 2014 to shore up the precarious stability established under the transitional government. A U.N. sanctions regime for Central African Republic, which includes an arms embargo, was set up in December 2013. In May 2014, the Security Council blacklisted former President Francois Bozize and two other men, one of whom has since died. Last month it blacklisted the Belgian branch of CAR's diamond-trading company and three individuals linked to the conflict. CAR presidential and legislative elections are scheduled for Oct. 18. They have already been postponed several times, however, and the transitional government said on Tuesday the vote was unlikely to take place on time.

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Ngwa Bertrand

03.Sep.2015

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