Monthly Archives: April 2025

2, April 2025

Yaoundé spent CFA311bn on interest payments for central government debt in 2024 ⁰

In 2024, Cameroon’s public treasury spent a total of CFA1.38 trillion repaying central government debt. According to the national sinking fund (CAA), the agency managing the country’s public debt, CFA311.4 billion of this amount was used to cover interest payments, including CFA58.8 billion for domestic debt.

Although the CAA highlights that Cameroon benefits from “favorable borrowing conditions,” with an average debt cost of 3.2% at the end of 2024, interest expenses continue to weigh on public finances, limiting funds available for development projects.

To put this in perspective, the interest payments made in 2024 were 2.5 times higher than the CFA126.4 billion the government expects to raise in 2025 through the new local taxation law to fund municipalities. They also represent nearly a quarter of the CFA1.14 trillion the African Development Bank (AfDB) has invested in Cameroon’s transport infrastructure. Additionally, this amount is almost double the CFA164 billion in private-sector investments claimed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a World Bank subsidiary. The IFC plans to expand its investment portfolio in Cameroon to CFA300 billion over the next three years, which is still CFA11 billion less than what the government paid in interest alone in 2024.

The growing interest burden on Cameroon’s central government debt is largely due to the country’s increased reliance on non-concessional loans in recent years. In 2024, only 35.9% of new financial commitments were concessional loans, while 64.1% came from non-concessional sources, according to the CAA.

Non-concessional loans, which often consist of commercial debt, include borrowing from financial markets and private institutions that typically charge higher interest rates. While these loans provide more flexibility in securing funds, they also come at a higher cost. This makes strict financial management essential to limit interest expenses and ensure long-term budget stability, the CAA warns.

Source: Business in Cameroon

2, April 2025

President Putin begins biggest Russian military call-up in years ⁰

President Vladimir Putin has called up 160,000 men aged 18-30, Russia’s highest number of conscripts since 2011, as the country moves to expand the size of its military.

The spring call-up for a year’s military service came several months after Putin said Russia should increase the overall size of its military to almost 2.39 million and its number of active servicemen to 1.5 million.

That is a rise of 180,000 over the coming three years.

Vice Adm Vladimir Tsimlyansky said the new conscripts would not be sent to fight in Ukraine for what Russia calls its “special military operation”.

However, there have been reports of conscripts being killed in fighting in Russia’s border regions and they were sent to fight in Ukraine in the early months of the full-scale war.

The current draft, which takes place between April and July, comes despite US attempts to forge a ceasefire in the war.

There was no let-up in the violence on Tuesday, with Ukraine saying that a Russian attack on a power facility in the southern city of Kherson had left 45,000 people without electricity.

Although Russia has turned down a full US-brokered ceasefire with Ukraine, it says it did agree to stop attacking Ukraine’s energy facilities. In an apparent attempt to deny Moscow had broken the terms of that deal, Russian officials said they had told Putin that Ukrainian drones had carried out attacks with little sign of a break.

Russia calls up conscripts in the spring and autumn but the latest draft of 160,000 young men is 10,000 higher than the same period in 2024.

Since the start of last year, the pool of young men available for the draft has been increased by raising the maximum age from 27 to 30.

As well as call-up notices delivered by post, Russia’s young men will be receiving notifications on the state services website Gosuslugi.

In Moscow there were reports that call-ups had already been sent out on 1 April via the mos.ru city website.

Increasing numbers of Russians are trying to avoid the army by taking on “alternative civilian service”. But human rights lawyer Timofey Vaskin warned on independent Russian media that every new call-up since the start of the war had become a lottery: “Authorities are coming up with new forms of refilling the army.”

Quite apart from its twice-yearly draft, Russia has also called up large numbers of men as contract soldiers and recruited thousands of soldiers from North Korea.

Moscow has had to respond to extensive losses in Ukraine, with more than 100,000 verified by the BBC and Mediazona as soldiers killed in Ukraine.

The true number could be more than double.

Putin has scaled up the size of the military three times since he ordered troops to capture Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s defence ministry linked the December 2023 increase in the size of the military to “growing threats” from both the war in Ukraine and the “ongoing expansion of Nato”.

Nato has expanded to include Finland and Sweden, as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Finland has Nato’s longest border with Russia, at 1,343km (834 miles) and Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Tuesday that his country would join other states neighbouring Russia in pulling out of the Ottawa convention banning anti-personnel mines.

Poland and the Baltic states made similar decisions two weeks ago because of the military threat from Russia.

Orpo said the decision to resume using anti-personnel mines was based on military advice, and that the people of Finland had nothing to worry about.

The government in Helsinki also said defence spending would be increased to 3% of economic output (GDP), up from 2.4% last year.

Source: BBC

1, April 2025

Niger’s junta withdraws from Lake Chad anti-Boko Haram force ⁰

Niger’s ruling junta has quit a regional force fighting armed Islamist groups in west Africa’s Lake Chad area, cementing an acrimonious split from former allies in the region.

The decision to exit the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) was announced in a bulletin on state television over the weekend. The move “reflects a stated intent to reinforce security for oil sites”, the bulletin stated, without providing further details.

The MNJTF was formed in 2015 by Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria in the wake of increasing jihadist attacks across their territories. At its peak, it had an estimated 10,000 troops and fought many armed groups, especially Boko Haram and its offshoots. But any serious progress has been hampered or even undone by poor collaboration and equipping, analysts say.

“The force was never that effective, said Ulf Laessing, the Bamako-based director of the Sahel programme at Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German thinktank. Its decline, he added, was “good news for jihadists and it is bad news for villagers on the lake side, fishers or farmers who just want to go about their business but who will now get less military support”.

Niger’s exit from MNJTF came days after the junta’s leader, Abdourahmane Tiani, was sworn in as president until 2030 under a new charter that suspended the constitution and dissolved all political parties.

Niger has also isolated itself from the Economic Community of West African State (Ecowas), after Ecowas imposed a range of sanctions following the coup that ousted the democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, in July 2023.

Within two months of the coup, it had joined the splinter Alliance of Sahel States (AES) along with Burkina Faso and Mali, where there have also been military takeovers since 2020.

Since then, AES has introduced new biometric passports to replace the old regional passports and on Monday, it announced a 0.5% levy on imported goods from Ecowas states.

Ikemesit Effiong, managing partner at Nigerian geopolitical risk advisory SBM Intelligence, said the levy put an end to “a long history of free trade across the western Sahel” and could change the dynamics of Ecowas’s negotiations with AES.

“When squared with Ecowas’s statement commitment to keep open trade and borders with AES states, I think this [levy] will force Ecowas to drop its kid gloves strategy and be more forceful with the AES,” Effiong said.

It remains unclear what impact Niger’s withdrawal from the MNJTF will have on a security agreement signed with neighbouring Nigeria last August. The countries share a border that spans 1,000 miles but Nigeria-led Ecowas’s push for a rapid return to democratic governance has caused friction between both countries.

Effiong said recent moves in the capital, Niamey, which has been seeking new military and economic partners since expelling French troops in 2023, are unsurprising.

“Niger has been pulling out of all its main regional bilateral and multilateral commitments, much of which it sees as western influenced or inspired,” said Effiong, who noted that MTNJTF had received military and intelligence aid from western partners in the past.

Source: The Guardian

1, April 2025

Former Nigerian head of state Obasanjo to invest $700mln in Kribi ⁰

Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former president turned businessman, is set to visit the Kribi deep-sea port in Cameroon this April to launch his company, Obasanjo Agro-Allied Business Ltd (OABL). His venture aims to strengthen cross-border trade between Cameroon and Nigeria.

According to Agha Albert Ngwana, CEO of Aftel Cameroon Limited, a partner of Obasanjo’s group, OABL plans to invest $700 million (about CFA420 billion) in multiple sectors, including agriculture, maritime transport, hospitality, and oil.

As part of the project, Obasanjo will expand his farm operations into Cameroon, cultivating maize and soybeans on 610 hectares of land to support his livestock business. OABL has secured land concessions from the Kribi port authority and intends to set up packaging factories, wholesale fertilizer distribution, and warehouse facilities.

The company also plans to develop a 10-hectare site for wood processing and introduce various maritime services to ease congestion at Nigeria’s Apapa and Lekki ports. “Our goal is to provide transshipment services and other key operations at the Kribi deep-sea port,” Ngwana explained. OABL’s plans also include building oil and gas storage facilities for ship refueling and constructing a five-star hotel in Kribi.

Obasanjo’s investment comes as Kribi prepares to launch the second phase of its port expansion. China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), completed the technical handover of the new infrastructure on February 21, 2025. The extension, which includes a 715-meter-long dock, is expected to boost efficiency and capacity when commercial operations begin in April.

OABL’s projects will not only strengthen economic ties between Cameroon and Nigeria—two of the region’s leading economies—but also support local producers, enhance regional development, and position Kribi as a key hub for cross-border trade. This aligns with the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by promoting intra-African commerce.

In 2023, trade between Cameroon and Nigeria was largely driven by exports, reaching CFA39.5 billion, with imports totaling CFA39.4 billion, according to Cameroon’s National Institute of Statistics. However, authorities note that informal trade and smuggling significantly impact official trade figures, given the two countries share a long and porous 1,500-km border.

Source: Business in Cameroon

1, April 2025

Biya’s Succession: Catholic bishops urge electoral reform ahead of presidential election ⁰

Catholic bishops in Cameroon are calling for electoral reform as the country prepares for the 2025 presidential election.

In a March 28 Pastoral Letter, the bishops insist that the electoral code as it stands now cannot make for a free, fair and transparent election, echoing the demands of several opposition parties.

“The electoral process in Cameroon is governed by the Constitution and the 2012 Electoral Code?’ Despite this legal framework, the opposition parties and civil society in our country continue to criticize the electoral process for its lack of transparency, justice and fairness,” the bishops say.

They emphasized the need for a revised Electoral Code and improvements in the systems governing elections and campaign financing.

They acknowledged that immediate reforms may not impact this year’s elections but stressed the importance of establishing a code of good conduct.

“The code of good conduct for elections can be understood as a series of behavioral standards drawn up and adopted by all the parties involved in an electoral process and aimed at helping to create conditions conducive to the organization of fair, free, credible and transparent elections, and to the acceptance of the election results by all,” the bishops said.

Father Humphrey Tatah Mbuy, a leading priest and researcher in Cameroon, questioned the autonomy of the body in charge of managing elections in Cameroon, Elections Cameroon (ELECAM), explaining that there was “too much interference by the Ministry of Territorial Administration or the government in ELECAM, and people are questioning very seriously if ELECAM is as independent and autonomous as it should be.”

“Once it is not, it goes without saying that everything they organize will be seen by others as if they are teleguided. Also, if you look at the whole election the way it is, we don’t have an electoral map. Nobody knows how many people are in what part of Cameroon at any given moment,” Mbuy told Crux.

He said the absence of data on population dynamics makes it hard for political parties and contestants for political office to identify where to seek the most votes.

The priest added that the electoral code is defective in several areas, but offered no specifics, saying simply that the government’s seeming allergy to revising it as advocated by several opposition parties and civil society organizations means “there is something that may be hidden.”

“Opposition parties have also worked on the electoral code and suggested what could be added and what could be subtracted, and what could be better in our code. The better it is, the better for all of us. If elections are fair, they are fair for everyone,” he told Crux.

On February 17, the mail service of the Presidency of the Republic admitted to having received a document detailing the proposals of the opposition parties and civil society on what to improve on Cameroon’s electoral code.

The proposals include the introduction of a single ballot paper; lengthening the duration of electoral campaigns (to 30 days instead of 15); lowering the security deposit required for legislative elections (from $5,000) to $825 per candidate) and municipals (from $8 t9o $40); and prohibiting polling stations from being set up in barracks or chieftaincies.

The proposed reform also seeks to reduce the abstention rate by suggesting that voting should be made compulsory.

In addition, the proposed reform seeks to make ELECAM more independent of government and the ruling party and seeks to make the counting of votes more efficient and transparent.

Besides reforms to the electoral code and electoral process, the Catholic bishops in their March 28 Pastoral Letter also propose that the media should exercise balance in the way they cover elections.

They said the media’s role in democratic participation was indispensable, noting that without a clear understanding of the political landscape, facts, and proposed solutions, meaningful participation becomes impossible.

They emphasized the need to promote pluralism in information and communication, supported by laws that guarantee equal access to these tools.

The bishops, however, expressed concern that the concentration of media ownership among a few individuals or groups poses a significant threat to democracy, especially when intertwined with governmental and financial interests.

“The information provided by the media is at the service of the common good. Society has a right to information based on truth, freedom, justice, and solidarity,” they said.

They said a diverse media landscape is essential for voters to access reliable and varied information, enabling free and objective choices. Unfortunately, some digital media outlets thrive on disinformation, defamation, and hate speech, often exploiting tribalistic sentiments.

This underscores the need for vigilance from bodies like the National Communications Council (NCC) and adherence to laws, such as the 2019 legislation against hate speech and tribalism.

“Men and women of the media must be competent; distinguished by their expertise and the quality of the information they broadcast, as well as by their ability to resist pressures that run counter to their professional ethics,” the bishops said in their statement.

Source: Crux