Business

Barely 2% of Cameroonians make purchases online. This was revealed at the opening of the 2^nd Afrikebiz Fair. The event gathers e-commerce companies based in Africa to look at ways and means of supporting the development of e-commerce in Africa.

According to official figures, the low rate is due to the fact that hardly 400,000 Cameroonians have access to the internet out of a population of over 20 million inhabitants.

The costs in Cameroon are noticeably higher than in countries of comparable level such as Cote d’Ivoire or Senegal.

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Ngwa Bertrand

29.Apr.2015

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The General Manager of the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC Franklin Ngoni Njie has reportedly fired the Estate Manager for the Idenau Oil Palm Estate and a host of other senior workers from the company. Our informant at the head office in Bota revealed that Alexander Tata Kinsai and his Estate Field Assistant, Samuel Wole were involved in a vicious corrupt scamming process whereby temporal ghost workers were regularly included on the general list of workers. The Tata Kinsai/Wole scheme raised payment vouchers which were forwarded to the head office and payments gotten. The GM's decision coming only after Cameroon Concord's special report on the CDC is very disturbing.

Cameroon Concord also learnt from security sources that the scamming managers at CDC went home with approximately 5-6 millions FCFA each month. Our source revealed at the time of writing this report that Franklin Ngoni Njie has ordered the creation of an internal commission of inquiry with a mandate to scrutinize all the Estates of the CDC. Perhaps, the GM's action is deliberate, perhaps it is accidental, what is abundantly clear is that Franklin Ngoni Njie is heading a shameful CDC.

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Ngwa Bertrand

25.Apr.2015

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The Cameroonian subsidiary of the pan-African group Ecobank has been approached by the Cameroon Airlines Corporation (Camair Co) to raise 30 billion FCFA in financing to implement recovery programme for the airline. This was revealed by Camair Co Managing Director, Jean Paul Nana Sandjo, in an interview with the Cameroonian government’s daily publication.

“The financing is already available. It will be disbursed in the next two to three weeks. After, we will roll out the recovery plan which will involve purchasing six planes to add to the two MA60s we already have. This will bring Camair-Co’s fleet to 11 by July-August,” stated the company’s managing director who indicated that the airline was 30 billion FCFA after 4 years of activities.

In addition to strengthening the company’s fleet, Jean Paul Nana Sandjo stated that the financing from Ecobank will be used to put in place maintenance facilities for the airline’s aircrafts. Indeed, explains the managing director, despite a lack of cash-flow, Camair Co spends a lot on the maintenance of its planes abroad, at times due to maintenance issues as basic as a flat tire.

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Ngwa Bertrand

23.Apr.2015

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Despite last week’s delivery of two new planes to the Chinese company, Avic International, the fate of Camair Co still hangs in the balance. This was what Camair Co’s Managing Director, Jean Paul Nana Sandjo, revealed.

“Camair-Co was launched in circumstances that created a lot of debt. Today, we are recovering, but we still owe 30 billion FCFA. Conclusion: things are still bad,” he confessed as he went on to reveal Cameroon’s national carrier’s colossal debt after recently celebrating its fourth birthday.

With 700 employees, “we have to reduce our labour force to less than 150. We currently have 250,” stated Camair Co’s Managing Director. Facing this situation, Jean Paul Nana Sandjo maintains that the company has no alternative but to consolidate its fleet which now comprises three aircraft servicing “15 destinations.”

Confronted with financial struggles since it opened, with high charges (for example, a a flat tire has to be sent abroad for repair due to a lack of technical capacity) and low revenue, the national carrier, currently holding third place behind Air France and Brussels Airline, has only survived this far thanks to financial support from the government.

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Ngwa Bertrand

22.Apr.2015

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Africa’s inventor of the continent’s first medical tablet, the Cardiopad, Arthur Zang, could win a portion of the 93 million FCFA (150,000 USD) of 2015’s Prize for Innovation in Africa (PIA) held by the African Innovation Foundation (AIF).

The Cameroonian engineer who developed the tablet that facilitates cardiovascular testing with results being communicated remotely is among the 10 nominees for 2015’s Prize for Innovation in Africa out of 925 candidates from 41 African countries.

The final results will be announced on May 12 and 13 in Skhirat in Morocco, the country which the AIF has referred to as “becoming a platform for innovation in Africa.”

Zang grew up in Mbankomo, a town 22 kilometres from Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. It had no running water and the electricity supply was intermittent. “During that time I learned to make do with little,” he says. Making it to university to study computer engineering in Yaoundé, he became fascinated by the potential of computers to changing lives. From his disadvantaged beginnings, he drew the motivation to solve problems that would leave humanity better off.

Zang felt he could best serve Cameroon by improving the health of its people. Conscious of the rising toll from heart disease caused by changing lifestyles and the difficulty of getting a reliable early diagnosis – especially in rural communities – he  designed a robust, portable, low-cost way to measure heart health, anywhere, any time. In 2014, his invention inspired U.S. business magazine Forbes to list Zang among the “30 most promising entrepreneurs in Africa”.

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Ngwa Bertrand

21.Apr.2015

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Africa’s inventor of the continent’s first medical tablet, the Cardiopad, Arthur Zang, could win a portion of the 93 million FCFA (150,000 USD) of 2015’s Prize for Innovation in Africa (PIA) held by the African Innovation Foundation (AIF).

The Cameroonian engineer who developed the tablet that facilitates cardiovascular testing with results being communicated remotely is among the 10 nominees for 2015’s Prize for Innovation in Africa out of 925 candidates from 41 African countries.

The final results will be announced on May 12 and 13 in Skhirat in Morocco, the country which the AIF has referred to as “becoming a platform for innovation in Africa.”

Zang grew up in Mbankomo, a town 22 kilometres from Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. It had no running water and the electricity supply was intermittent. “During that time I learned to make do with little,” he says. Making it to university to study computer engineering in Yaoundé, he became fascinated by the potential of computers to changing lives. From his disadvantaged beginnings, he drew the motivation to solve problems that would leave humanity better off.

Zang felt he could best serve Cameroon by improving the health of its people. Conscious of the rising toll from heart disease caused by changing lifestyles and the difficulty of getting a reliable early diagnosis – especially in rural communities – he  designed a robust, portable, low-cost way to measure heart health, anywhere, any time. In 2014, his invention inspired U.S. business magazine Forbes to list Zang among the “30 most promising entrepreneurs in Africa”.

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

21.Apr.2015

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