30, April 2025
CPDM Crime Syndicate: Biya appoints Johnny Razack as Chair of SNI 0
Johnny Razack has been appointed chairman of Cameroon’s National Investment Company (SNI), following a presidential decree signed on April 25. The 52-year-old senior civil servant takes over from Geoffroy Désiré Mbock, who held the position for five years.
The SNI acts as the government’s main investment vehicle, holding stakes in companies and helping create new businesses. Razack’s nomination comes at a turning point for the institution, which was restructured last year to take on a stronger role in shaping the country’s economic and industrial strategy.
Before his appointment, Razack served as Secretary General at the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, a position he had held since December 22, 2015. Over his career, he also managed government correspondence at the Prime Minister’s Office and spent several years overseeing union matters. He began his career at the Ministry of Economy in 2005 as acting head of personnel services.
Razack brings with him a solid academic background. He is a graduate of ENA Paris, part of the 2002–2004 “Léopold Senghor” cohort, which also included French President Emmanuel Macron. He also graduated from Cameroon’s ENAM in Yaoundé, class of 1998–2000, the same year as Health Minister Malachie Manaouda. A committed member of the ruling RDPC party, he also serves as a mission officer at the party’s central committee. He hails from Bénoué in the North region.
A fellow RDPC member commented that Razack’s appointment “shows the President’s trust in loyal, capable profiles to manage key pillars of the national economy.”
His nomination follows the recent reshuffle of the SNI’s board of directors. Eleven members were appointed, including Gwendoline Abunaw, Managing Director of Ecobank Cameroon, and Célestin Tawamba, head of the country’s main business federation GECAM. They represent the banking and private sector, respectively.
This move is part of a broader overhaul of the SNI, initiated by President Paul Biya on July 10, 2024. The reform transformed the SNI into a public capital company with a sharper focus on investment planning. Under the new structure, SNI now plays a dual role: as a government investor and as a consulting and research body. It is fully owned by the state.
The company’s capital was raised to CFA200 billion, to be released gradually over four years. The goal is to turn the SNI into a true investment holding. Plans are already underway to open its subsidiaries to new public and private shareholders. The strategy aims to better manage the state’s holdings and help build strong national companies.
The SNI’s new responsibilities are extensive. It will now screen industrial projects from the private sector by issuing financial and economic viability clearances before the state can step in. It will also assess public companies by conducting audits, performance reviews, and diagnostics. In addition, it will help prepare and monitor performance contracts between the state and these firms.
On top of that, the SNI will now handle venture capital and private equity activities, as well as act as a stock market intermediary and asset manager.
Razack’s appointment comes with big expectations. While he is seen as a trusted and well-connected civil servant with political weight and administrative experience, some in the business community question whether he has the hands-on experience needed to run an institution now tasked with high-stakes investment operations. Others are confident that his background and network could serve him well in navigating this new chapter.
Source: Business in Cameroon
2, May 2025
“Pope Francis never forgets that Cameroon beat Argentina in the 1990 World Cup” 0
Bishops in Cameroon have gathered in the capital Yaoundé for their 50th Ordinary Plenary, but the death of Pope Francis and the conclave to choose a new pope that begins on May 7 in Rome, loom large at the gathering.
At a Mass to kick off the deliberations, the Apostolic Nuncio to Cameroon, Archbishop Julio Murat told journalists that Francis’s legacy in Cameroon and the world will outlive his life on earth.
“The very fact of the Presence of all the Archbishops and Bishops of Cameroon here this evening to celebrate this Mass is a testament that the Pope’s Pontificate touched the very hearts of Cameroon,” Murat said.
“In his last testament, Pope Francis offered his life, his prayer, his work for peace and fraternity in the world. He himself preached many times about mercy, and the Holy Door of the Jubilee for Mercy was opened in the geographical heart of Africa, Bangui right next door to us,” the representative of the Holy See in Cameroon said.
That door was opened on November 29, 2015, by Pope Francis when he visited the Central African Republic.
“He [Francis] also promulgated the decree to make Baba Simon a venerable and presented him to the world –a Cameroonian. So his heritage will long last his life, and now we know he prays to us from heaven,” the archbishop said.
The President of the Cameroon Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya, added that the bishops were “united with the Universal Church in prayer for peace in his soul.”
“Pope Francis was a father to me,” Nkea told Crux.
“It is Pope Francis who appointed me Archbishop,” he said.
Nkea narrated little instances during which he had to be up and personal with the pope, like buttoning the pope’s cassock, and the pope asking him to take out his phone and record a greeting for the people of Bamenda.
“Pope Francis never forgets that Cameroon beat Argentina in the 1990 World Cup,” Nkea recalls the pontiff joking with him during one of his visits to the Vatican.
“His simplicity was phenomenal,” the archbishop said.
Lay Christians were also full of praise for the late pope. Pascaline Ndifor, a member of the Catholic Women’s Association, told Crux that she remembers Pope Francis for his humility.
“The memory I keep of him is that of humility, and his prayerful nature. This year, we are celebrating the Jubilee Year of Hope. It teaches us the humility and the simplicity the late Pope taught us-it is the way to Christ. That what touches me so much-the simple, spiritual life he teaches us,” she said.
Bessy Bah Awah also remembers Francis for his simplify and humility, recalling a time last year when she was among a delegation of Catholic women who visited the Holy See during which the Holy Father granted them an audience.
“He was very particular about the role of women in the Church. That touched me, and in addition to his humility, I think that he has left a great legacy-a legacy of humility, simplicity and love,” she said.
Maurine Dengo, a social worker, calls Francis “my social worker pope” because of the pontiff’s efforts to bring respite to “the less privileged, the vulnerable, the poor, the marginalized, the suffering…everything that has to do with my profession, Pope Francis was doing it.”
As the world waits for the Conclave to begin, Nkea says the Catholic Church in Cameroon is in unison with the Universal Church “to pray for the Cardinals who are already in Rome, in the conclave, to choose another Holy Father.”
“And as you can see, it is the Holy Spirit that guides the Cardinals in this exercise of choosing another Holy Father for us. And we pray, as the Holy Spirit has done all the time, he will give us a Pope who will manage the Church according to the heart of Jesus Christ,” the archbishop said.
Nkea said that that the 50th plenary of the bishops focuses on the daily running of the Church in Cameroon and to look at the future, especially in this year of hope.
He noted that the major issues preoccupying the bishops are “the socio-economic situation of the country” and the presidential election scheduled to take place in November.
The bishops had already issued pastoral letters about the two issues, and the archbishop of Bamenda called on Cameroonians to take a closer look at those letters in order to “ensure that everything is going to pass during the election month in peace and tranquility. This is what we ask of our people.”
Source: Crux