Business

10, June 2018

Biya regime begins operations to clear boat wrecks off Douala port ⁰

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

9, June 2018

Blood Gas: UK signs £ 1.5BILLION trade deal with Biya ⁰

TRADE Secretary Liam Fox has announced the UK has secured a £1.5billion trade deal and signed off £75million in other trade agreements in a major boost for the UK economy after Brexit.

Dr Fox announced today a deal worth more than £1.5 billion had been secured by a UK company to deliver natural gas project in Cameroon. Additional deals have also been secured in Panama, Turkey, India and Qatar worth £75million for British businesses.

Capitalising on recent foreign visits by Cameroon’s Minister Secretary General, UK businesses have been exploring exporting opportunities with some of the fastest-growing economies.

London based oil and gas company New Age and the Cameroon government have agreed a deal that will see the development of a floating natural gas project in Cameroon. The deal comes after Trade Minister Baroness Fairhead’s meeting with Minister Secretary General Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

Source: Express.Co.UK

8, June 2018

Nigeria: Customs intercepts truckload of petrol being smuggled into French Cameroon ⁰

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

7, June 2018

US Republicans challenge Trump on tariffs ⁰

Several Republican senators defied the White House Wednesday and pressed ahead with legislation that would require Congress to sign off on certain tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration, citing national security concerns, last week unveiled punishing tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from the European Union, Canada, Japan and Mexico, among others, antagonising free-trade supporters in the US Congress.

The bill, sponsored by six Republicans and four Democrats, would require the president to submit to Congress any proposal to place tariffs on imports in the interest of national security, under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act.

“Unfortunately, the administration is abusing the Section 232 authority delegated to the president by Congress,” said Senator Bob Corker, the bill’s chief proponent.

“If the president truly believes invoking Section 232 is necessary to protect the United States from a genuine threat, he should make the case to Congress and to the American people and do the hard work necessary to secure congressional approval,” Corker added.

Corker, who is retiring at the end of the year, said he received a “lengthy” phone call from the Republican president who told him “he’s not pleased with the effort” to rein in his trade authority.

The lawmakers aim to introduce the measure as an amendment to a national defence authorisation bill coming up for debate in the Senate.

The defence bill is must-pass legislation, but the fate of the tariff measure is uncertain.

Even if it passes the Senate, it might end up being scrapped from the final version of the defence bill negotiated with the House.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signalled he was unwilling to spend much time on the “contentious” measure, saying he wanted to focus in the coming months on “getting bills passed that we have to do for the country.”

Several Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, have expressed frustration with Trump’s willingness to defy party orthodoxy and resort to punitive tariffs against allies, moves they warn could spark trade wars that would end up hurting American producers, workers and consumers.

But Ryan hinted Wednesday at the difficulty of Congress reining in Trump’s trade authority.

“You’d have to pass a law that he would want to sign into law,” Ryan told reporters. “You can do the math on that.”

Corker said the “vast majority” of Senate Republicans agreed with the policy to limit Trump’s imposition of tariffs.

But Republican leadership and rank-and-file conservatives have shown little appetite to defy Trump legislatively, especially in a mid-term election year.

(AFP)

5, June 2018

Unwanted Cameroon Cocoa Is Said to Ruffle Latest London Delivery ⁰

Unwanted cocoa from Cameroon disrupted the latest exchange delivery in London as one trader was forced to split large piles of beans into smaller bags, according to people familiar with the matter. Swiss company Ecom Agroindustrial Corp. had to break down two piles of 1,000 metric tons of beans from Cameroon for delivery as several traders bought via the exchange, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. It was the first time that the bulk delivery units had to be split, prompting ICE Futures Europe to delay the delivery announcement by a day and then later revise amounts.

Large amounts of cocoa from Cameroon have plagued the London market recently, as buyers use up surpluses of better quality beans from Ivory Coast and Ghana. That has caused Cameroonian supplies to pile up at the exchange, helping push contracts for earlier delivery to a record discount to later-dated futures. Traders don’t want to buy Cameroonian cocoa because only big processors can use large amounts of it, and most of ICE’s supplies of those beans are in 1,000-ton piles.

In the latest delivery, some traders tried to avoid receiving cocoa from Cameroon by keeping their long positions below a certain level in the hope that they’d get beans of another origin, the people said. That backfired because exchange rules can force the breakdown into smaller bags.

Converting the bulk delivery units can be expensive, costing sellers anywhere between 70 euros to 100 euros ($82 to $117) a ton, according to traders and warehouse keepers. While Paris-based trader Sucres et Denrees SA also delivered cocoa, a bourse algorithm randomly selected Ecom as the one that had to split the bulk units, the people said.

Buyers of the May contract included Cargill Inc., Barry Callebaut AG, Dutch trader Cocoanect and Belgium’s Group Sopex, the people said. Most of the delivery was of Cameroonian beans, with the rest coming from Nigeria, ICE data show. Some arrangements to settle the expiry were made outside the exchange as ICE’s rules have a provision for alternative delivery procedures, according to the people.

The issue has called into question whether the exchange should allow bulk delivery, or a combination of Cameroon cocoa and bulk units, the traders said. The exchange will probably address the issue next time its cocoa advisory committee meets, the people said.

ICE continuously evaluates contract terms and procedures, including holding open dialogue with market participants, ICE Futures Europe President Stuart Williams said. The last delivery took place in line with exchange rules, he said, adding that it could look into possible changes based on industry feedback.

Source: Bloomberg

1, June 2018

Uganda imposes tax on social media use ⁰

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)

26, May 2018

Russia warns oil to hit new highs ⁰

Russia is warning that the decision by US President Donald Trump to pull America out of a nuclear agreement with Iran and re-instate sanctions against the country could push oil prices to new highs.

Igor Sechin, the chief executive officer of Russia’s oil giant Rosneft, was quoted by media as saying that the sanctions against Iran – that would include bans on purchases of oil from the country – could cause an inevitable reduction of Iranian barrels in the global supply pool.

Sechin added that the sanctions against Iran could knock at least five percent of global oil production offline.

He warned that new price records might be on the horizon due to Trump’s anti-Iran move particularly now that oil futures were already sliding on expectation of higher Russian and Saudi production – amid signals that the ongoing OPEC and non-OPEC production cut agreement to the tune of 1.8 million barrels per day might be canned, according to a report by the Forbes.

Drivers and industries across Europe and the U.S. will feel the effects of action taken by the White House, as the revoking of the Iran Nuclear deal – “a non-market factor” makes the global oil sector unpredictable, Sechin – widely believed to be close to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin – added.

“I have to say that the US has consistently pursued the policy of non-acceptance of international agreements, which would allow challenging their actions on global platforms. In fact, judicial protection and fair market arbitration are off the table.”

On Wednesday, Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer warned that Trump’s decision to pull the US out of Iran nuclear deal could affect America’s consumption market and criticized the president for failing to take a proper action to stop this.

Schumer criticized Trump over the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement and exhorted the president to “stand up to OPEC” over the price issue.

“It’s time for this president to stand up to OPEC,” he said.

“He’s palling around with the Saudis and the UAE and all these other oil-rich countries. Why doesn’t he ask them to lower their prices?” Schumer said, added that Trump “should buck his oil industry buddies.”

Schumer said that gasoline prices had jumped 25 percent since Trump took office in January 2017 and blamed his policies – specifically those concerning the Middle East and Iran – for this.

Culled from Presstv

25, May 2018

Southern Cameroons economic collapse is worse than Biafra after the Nigerian civil war ⁰

Southern Cameroons economy is rightly an afterthought compared to the scope of suffering that has accompanied the senseless war launched by President Biya. Approximately 1300 are dead. Some 40,000 Ambazonians have fled the country to Nigeria and as many as 160,000 others have been displaced internally according to the United Nations.

Correspondingly, it’s worth noting the almost utter economic devastation. Cameroon Concord News Group estimates that more than 95% of the Southern Cameroons economy has been destroyed by the war. Understandably, our estimate is based on very limited data and conjecture due to the fact that the French Cameroun army soldiers have prevented all our efforts at getting access to most important data ever since the revolution began.

For the record, the two year destruction of more than three-quarters of the Southern Cameroons economy would rank among one of the steeper economic collapses ever recorded deep within the African continent, outpacing the catastrophic economic decline of Biafra after their defeat in the Nigerian civil war. As the killing of innocent Southern Cameroons civilians continue in places such as Santa and Pinyin village, it would take Africa’s newest state-the Federal Republic of Ambazonia about 40 years to reach its pre-war real GDP level.

By Seseskou Asu Isong, London

21, May 2018

Camtel and SatADSL team up to connect Cameroon ⁰

SatADSL, a provider of VSAT services via satellite, and Cameroonian operator Camtel, have announced a partnership to provide satellite connectivity nationwide. The formal agreement follows a pilot of SatADSL’s services at various public and private enterprises and communities in Cameroon, including schools, post offices, hospitals and banks.

SatADSL plans to integrate and deploy its VSAT services in the central African country, enabling Camtel to offer competitive broadband packages to even the most rural areas. SatADSL will fulfil all of Camtel’s satellite connectivity requirements on every frequency range, namely Ku-, Ka- and C-band. Camtel is the latest operator in Africa to deploy SatADSL’s services, which are offered through the Cloud-based Service Delivery Platform (C-SDP).

The complete OSS/BSS, carrier-grade, fully redundant platform allows operators easily to outsource satellite services, reducing the cost of providing ubiquitous connectivity by enabling fast, flexible and future-proof satellite connectivity via the cloud for the first time, eliminating the need for physical infrastructure.

Source: Telecompaper

19, May 2018

Nexttel Cameroun in crisis: Whatever Baba Danpullo wants, Baba Danpullo gets ⁰

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