Headline News

17, December 2024

Douala: Sanlam and Allianz finalize merger to form SanlamAllianz ⁰

German insurer Allianz and South African insurer Sanlam officially announced their merger. The merger, which was finalized after an extraordinary general meeting of their Cameroonian subsidiaries on July 22, has created two new companies: SanlamAllianz Cameroun Assurances, which handles general insurance and is led by Olivier Malatre, and SanlamAllianz Cameroun Assurances Vie, which focuses on life insurance and is headed by Laya Sidibé.

“The insurance market in Cameroon is growing rapidly, with increasing demand for more diverse services and customized solutions. The merger between Sanlam and Allianz meets this demand by combining the strengths of two industry leaders. Sanlam brings deep knowledge of the African market, while Allianz contributes global expertise and technological innovation. Together, they create a synergy that will greatly benefit the Cameroonian population,” said Heinie Werth, CEO of SanlamAllianz.

SanlamAllianz now holds a significant position in Cameroon’s insurance market, with over CFA51 billion in revenue. More than CFA26 billion comes from SanlamAllianz Cameroun Assurances Vie, based on 2023 data. With the country’s total insurance market revenue reaching CFA272.5 billion at the end of 2023, according to the Association of Insurance Companies of Cameroon (ASAC), SanlamAllianz now controls 18.7% of the market.

The merger agreement was first announced on May 4, 2022, in a statement released on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Sanlam, Africa’s largest listed insurance group, had reached a deal to combine its pan-African operations with German group Allianz.

According to the terms of the agreement, Continental-Re, a reinsurer also operating in Cameroon, is not included in the deal. It remains under Sanlam’s ownership, as the group acquired it in 2018 after purchasing Moroccan insurer Saham.

The agreement also states that Allianz holds a 40% share in the newly formed entity, with an option to increase its ownership to 49%. The remaining shares remain under Sanlam’s control.

Source: Business in Cameroon

16, December 2024

Biya warns of disaster for Central Africa financial stability ⁰

President Paul Biya warned on Monday of “disastrous consequences” for the countries of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa if urgent action is not taken to address their deteriorating net external reserves.

The member countries – Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, and the Republic of Congo – share monetary policy and a currency with a common central bank.

Between them, they have struggled to emerge from the impact of the COVID pandemic and other external global shocks, leaving them short of foreign exchange or other assets to cover import bills and debt repayments.

They are also facing challenges domestically including a decline in oil production in five of the countries, prolonged civil conflict in Central African Republic and Cameroon, and a heavy debt burden in Gabon and default in Republic of Congo.

Biya called for more substantial actions to preserve the macroeconomic and financial stability of the region.

“According to recent data, our net external reserves have deteriorated considerably. This situation is preoccupying and calls for urgent action from us to inverse this trend,” Biya, said in his opening remarks at a summit of the leaders in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde.

“If nothing is done, according to various experts, we could face disastrous consequences for our countries and the subregion.”

He did not give any details of what the consequences might be or how they might be addressed, but any demands from international lenders to rein in spending by cutting subsidies or further trimming handouts could cause public discontent.

The International Monetary Fund, which is represented at the summit along with the World Bank and other partners, warned in June that the six nations needed decisive and coordinated actions to tackle fiscal and external imbalances.

The IMF cautioned that divergent economic performance and unchanged policies among the countries could threaten financial stability.

Source: Reuters

16, December 2024

Pictorial presentation of the South West Cultural Festival celebrated in Buea ⁰

People dance at the South West Cultural Festival in Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon, Dec. 15, 2024.

Dancers perform at the South West Cultural Festival in Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon, Dec. 15, 2024.

People in traditional dresses are pictured at the South West Cultural Festival in Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon, Dec. 15, 2024.

People dance at the South West Cultural Festival in Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon, Dec. 15, 2024.

Dancers parade at the South West Cultural Festival in Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon, Dec. 15, 2024.

People in traditional dresses are pictured at the South West Cultural Festival in Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon, Dec. 15, 2024.

Drummers perform at the South West Cultural Festival in Buea, Southwest Region, Cameroon, Dec. 15, 2024.

Culled from Xinhuanet

16, December 2024

CEMAC Summit: President Teodoro Obiang Nguema is in Yaoundé ⁰

The President of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Nguema Obiang has landed at the Yaoundé Nsimalen international airport. He is the second statesman to set foot on Cameroonian soil for the summit of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC).

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo was welcomed off the plane by Prime Minister Chief Joseph Dion Ngute.

The Equatorial Guinea leader is the second head of state to arrive in Cameroon for the summit.

Yesterday, Brigadier General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, President of Gabon arrived the nation’s capital Yaoundé for the extraordinary session to be held at the Palais de l’Unité.

The Gabon new strongman was also received by Prime Minister Dion Ngute, as he stepped off the plane. He reportedly passed the night at the Hilton Hotel, where he met the Minister of Communication and Government Spokesman, René Emmanuel Sadi.

By Rita Akana in Yaoundé

15, December 2024

Abuja: Despite internal crisis, Manyu Women still cling to Nyene Mawn ⁰

Across Manyu Division and in all Manyu diaspora communities, Nyene Mawn, the Manyu Women’s International Association are holding end of year celebrations witnessing massive participation of Manyu women uniting for community development purposes.

Nyene Mawn now has a critical mandate in Manyu affairs and represents the socio-economic and cultural development initiative of Manyu women and its creation in the Kingdom of Belgium has truly typified the rise of Manyu women as a social force and their conscious pursuit of development in Cameroon.

From Mamfe the chief town in Manyu to Johannesburg in South Africa and from Abuja in Nigeria to Amsterdam in Holland, it has become customary for most Manyu Nyene Mawn women to stage end of year celebrations.

The Nyene Mawn celebration that started in Belgium has currently brought Manyu women in Nigeria including visiting Barrister Eret MaEnow from Yaoundé to Nyene Mawn’s yearly ritual in Abuja.

Speaking today in Abuja, the President of Nyene Mawn Nigeria Chief Stella Arhewoh Ntui said Nyene Mawn is fast becoming a powerful and purposeful symbol and strategy for the exercise of identity among Manyu women.

Chief Stella Ntui added that Manyu women should become active actors and agents in the Manyu public sphere.

The President of Nyene Mawn Nigeria condemned the nasty happenings in Nyene Mawn UK and called on all Nyene Mawn queens in Europe to start building bridges of friendship and to deploy their inherent talents to promote unity, peace, friendship, justice, equity and love not only in Manyu Division but in Cameroon at large.

The Abuja Nyene Mawn annual reunion also gave Chief Stella Ntui the opportunity to market the 4 point plan announced by the President-General Dr Mrs Patience Abangma and to update Nyene Mawn Nigeria on preparations for France 2025.

The Abuja Nyene Mawn end of year was a colorful, rich and intriguing display of culture including dancing and enjoying the fufu and eru meal.

By Soter Agbaw-Ebai with files from Abuja

15, December 2024

The Holy Father touches down in Corsica for first papal visit ⁰

Pope Francis’ one-day visit to the French island of Corsica on Sunday, two days before his 88th birthday, puts a dual focus on the Mediterranean, highlighting local traditions of popular piety on the one hand and migrant deaths and wars on the other.

The visit to Corsica’s capital Ajaccio, birthplace of Napoleon, will be one of the briefest of his papacy beyond Italy’s borders, just about nine hours on the ground, including a 40-minute visit with French President Emmanuel Macron.

It is the first papal visit to the island, which Genoa ceded to France in 1768 and is located closer to the Italian mainland than France.

Corsica stands out from the rest of secularized France as a particularly devout region, with 92 confraternities, or lay associations dedicated to works of charity or piety, with over 4,000 members.

“It means that there is a beautiful, mature, adult and responsible collaboration between civil authorities, mayors, deputies, senators, officials and religious authorities,’’ Ajaccio Cardinal François Bustillo told The Associated Press. “There is no hostility between the two. And that is a very positive aspect because in Corsica there is no ideological hostility.”

Papa Francescu, the pope’s name in Corsican, will address more than 400 participants at the Conference on Popular Religiosity in the Mediterranean, organized by the bishop of Ajaccio, Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo.

The pope’s remarks will include reflections on local religious traditions, especially strongly held in Corsica, including the cult of the Virgin Mary, known locally as the Madunnuccia, which protected the island from the plague in 1656 when it was still under Genoa.

“The Mediterranean is the backdrop of this trip, surrounded by situations of crisis and conflict,’’ which is expected to be echoed in the pope’s address, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said. The pope has often referred to the tragedy of migration, which he has said has turned the Mediterranean into “Europe’s largest cemetery.”

After the conference address, he will travel to the 17th-century cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta to meet with clergy, stopping along the way at the statue of the Madunnuccia. Francis will celebrate Mass at the Place d’Austerlitz park, where it is said Napoleon played as a child. Around 7,000 faithful are expected. He will meet privately with Macron at the airport before departing for the 50-minute flight back to Rome.

The pontiff pointedly did not make the trip to Paris earlier this month for the pomp surrounding the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral following the devastating 2019 fire. The visit to Corsica seems far more suited to Francis’ priorities than a grand cathedral reopening, emphasizing the “church of the peripheries.”

It is Francis’ third trip to France, each time avoiding Paris and the protocols that a state visit entails. He visited the port of Marseille in 2023, on an overnight visit to participate in an annual summit of Mediterranean bishops, and went to Strasbourg in 2014 to address the European Parliament and Council of Europe.

Corsica is home to more than 340,000 people and has been part of France since 1768. But the island has also seen pro-independence violence and has an influential nationalist movement, and last year Macron proposed granting it limited autonomy.

Source: AP

13, December 2024

Biya regime dismisses 450 state employees ⁰

The Minister of Public Service and Administrative Reform, Joseph Le announced in a statement dated December 10, 2024, that he had signed a new series of decrees ordering the dismissal and revocation of certain civil servants and state employees governed by the Labor Code. These new sanctions affect 450 personnel (319 civil servants and 131 state employees under the Labor Code), bringing the total number of dismissals and revocations to 4,027 to date.

“However, those who believe they have been unfairly sanctioned may submit an appeal to the Superior Council of the Civil Service,” the minister reminded in his statement.

In the communiqué, Joseph Le emphasized the legitimacy of these measures, clarifying that they were taken in accordance with existing regulations, particularly the decree of October 7, 1994, on the General Statute of the Civil Service, amended and supplemented by the decree of October 12, 2000, as well as the decree of November 9, 1978, outlining common provisions applicable to state employees governed by the Labor Code.

This round of terminations falls within the framework of the contentious phase of the Physical Counting of State Personnel (Coppe) operation, aimed at cleaning up the government payroll database by removing irregular personnel entries. The reasons for this regularization include unjustified absences, undeclared resignations, or unreported deaths. The operation is scheduled to conclude in 2025, after which all affected personnel will be removed from the Civil Service in accordance with the president’s directives outlined in the circular of October 23, 2024, regarding the preparation of the 2025 budget.

According to the minister, the dismissed personnel are part of a group of 8,766 public employees at risk of sanctions. Despite the issuance of numerous notices to these employees, only 601 of them responded to requests for explanations and, in some cases, appeared before the Permanent Disciplinary Council of the Civil Service, explained. He added that further waves of dismissals and revocations cannot be ruled out.

Source: Sbbc

13, December 2024

Niger suspends BBC radio for ‘spreading false news’ ⁰

Niger on Thursday announced it was suspending BBC radio for three months, with the British broadcaster joining the growing list of Western media sanctioned by military juntas in the Sahel.

The ban on the BBC – accused of airing “erroneous information likely to destabilise social peace and undermine the morale of the troops” fighting jihadists – will come into force “with immediate effect” countrywide, the leadership said.

Popular BBC programmes including ones in the Hausa language are broadcast in Niger via local radio partners.

Since seizing power in a July 2023 coup, the military government has banned several Western media outlets.

Besides the BBC, two French broadcasters, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and France 24, have been banned there since August 2023.

On Thursday evening, the junta also said it was “filing a complaint” against RFI.

No programme in particular was mentioned in the decisions taken concerning the BBC and RFI.

But on Wednesday both broadcasters reported that jihadists had killed 90 soldiers and upwards of 40 civilians in Chatoumane, in the western Tera region bordering Burkina Faso teeming with armed fighters.

Although AFP was unable to verify those numbers from an independent local source, a Western security source told AFP that 90 to 100 people died in Tuesday’s attack.

‘Baseless assertions’

But on Wednesday Niger’s junta denied the attack happened, describing reports of the atrocity as “baseless assertions” and a “campaign of intoxication”.

For years Niger – along with its two neighbours Burkina Faso and Mali – has been plagued by jihadist violence.

The frontier lands straddling the three states – where Tuesday’s attack is said to have taken place – have long been a hideout for jihadists linked to the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.

All three of those Sahel countries have experienced military coups in recent years, and Niger’s fellow juntas have likewise suspended foreign media outlets.

With the three turning their backs on former colonial ruler France, many French media outlets have been suspended on accusations of being propaganda mouthpieces for Paris.

Other voices deemed critical of the military authorities have been silenced.

All three juntas have turned towards Russia for their security needs and expelled French troops stationed in the Sahel to fight against jihadists.

Niger’s army occasionally releases official reports on some of the jihadists’ attacks, which it says are carried out by “terrorists”.

On Wednesday it announced the death of 10 soldiers in an attack the previous day in the west of the country.

Near the borders with Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria, Niger’s far southeast also faces attacks from Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) group.

Jihadist attacks have killed at least 1,500 civilians and troops in Niger in the past year, according to conflict monitoring group ACLED – more than double the 650 killed from July 2022 to July 2023.

Source: AFP

12, December 2024

Swedish prosecutor closes rape inquiry against Kylian Mbappe ⁰

An investigation into alleged rape and sexual assault in Stockholm which Swedish media said targeted Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappe has been closed due to insufficient evidence, the Swedish prosecutor said Thursday.

Mbappe, the 25-year-old Frenchman who is one of the highest-profile players in world football, visited the Swedish capital October 9-11 with a group of people after he was left out of his country’s squad for a Nations League match.

Sweden’s prosecution authority announced on October 15 that it was investigating an alleged incident that occurred at an upscale Stockholm hotel on October 10, without mentioning the suspect by name.

Several Swedish media outlets, including newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen and public broadcaster SVT, identified Mbappe as the suspect.

“My assessment is that the evidence is not sufficient to proceed and the investigation is therefore closed,” prosecutor Marina Chirakova said in a statement that also did not mention Mbappe by name.

Chirakova said the person in question had not been interrogated and “not been notified of suspicion of a crime”.

“I have concluded, based on what has emerged in the case, that new evidence, including interrogations of the person in question, would not change the evidence situation right now,” she told AFP.

She said her team had nonetheless “conducted a large number of interviews in the investigation”.

Petra Eklund, the lawyer for the plaintiff, whose name has not been disclosed, told AFP she had “no comment” to the news that the case had been closed.

Mbappe’s lawyer said in October that he was “shocked” to see his name linked to the investigation.

Speaking for the first time about the case on Sunday, he told French television show Clique he was “not involved”.

“I haven’t received anything, no summons… I’m not involved,” he said.

According to Aftonbladet, Mbappe and his entourage dined at a restaurant one evening before going on to a nightclub.

The complaint was filed on October 12 after the alleged victim had sought medical attention, according to the newspaper.

Expressen reported that police had seized some clothing as evidence, saying it consisted of women’s underwear, a pair of black trousers and a black top. Photographs showed police officers leaving the hotel with brown bags.

Difficult season

Mbappe joined Madrid this summer after seven years at Paris Saint-Germain and has stayed clear of scandal in his private life.

The forward, who is known for carefully managing his image through a close network of family, lawyers and spokespeople, has become one of the world’s highest paid players after a stellar career that began when he was barely into his teens.

He has had a difficult season since moving to reigning European champions Real Madrid from PSG in the summer, failing to find his top form.

However the Frenchman scored in Madrid’s 3-2 win against Italian side Atalanta on Tuesday which revived Real’s flagging bid to regain their Champions League title.

Mbappe, Vinicius Junior and Jude Bellingham were all on the scoresheet in Bergamo as Madrid moved up to 20th place in the Champions League table, on nine points from six matches.

The Spanish giants would have been at risk of dropping out of the Champions League play-off places if they had lost.

Mbappe won the World Cup as a teenager in 2018 in Russia and scored a hat-trick in the 2022 final in Qatar which France lost on penalties to Lionel Messi’s Argentina.

At PSG he was part of a superstar trio with Messi and Brazilian forward Neymar, but the Qatar-owned club were unable to win the Champions League.

Source: AFP

12, December 2024

Unity Palace: Goodbye Rear-Admiral Joseph Fouda ⁰

After a heated argument with First Lady Chantal Biya, Rear-Admiral Joseph Fouda was drummed out of the Unity Palace accused of fraud.

He headed no unit of the Cameroonian armed forces, nor did he even grace its highest ranks, let alone did he earn President Paul Biya’s eternal gratitude by rescuing him from some plot or other, but Rear-Admiral Joseph Fouda was the most important military man of the last 20 years – nearly half the President’s time in power. Now, he is gone.

For more than two decades, he helped the 91-year-old President Biya to resist the intrigues and internal quarrels that undermined the presidential entourage. Through him, Biya avoided pitfalls and dodged cheap tricks.

Rear Admiral Joseph Fouda was indeed a very loyal aide-de-camp to Paul Biya and remains one of the oldest and closest collaborators of the head of state – a unique link that was forged in the corridors of power. Fouda is now a thing of the past.

Rita Akana with files from Africa Confidential