MTN has appointed new CEOs for two of its West African operations, MTN Cameroon and MTN Benin. Stephen Blewett, the current CEO of MTN Benin, will take the helm at MTN Cameroon on 1 August 2020 when Uche Ofodile, the current CEO of MTN Liberia, will become the CEO of MTN Benin.

“I would like to congratulate Stephen and Uche on their appointments,” says MTN Group president and CEO, Rob Shuter. “Both are renowned for harnessing the power of people to move businesses forward. This is evident in the significant improvements in employee engagement, as well as overall performance, at MTN’s operations in Benin and Liberia in the past few years.”

Karl Toriola, VP for MTN’s West and Central Africa region, thanked Stephen and Uche for their commitment and contribution: “Under Stephen’s leadership, MTN Benin recorded double-digit revenue growth for three years running. Uche leaves a business with double-digit year-on-year revenue growth, enjoying a nine-point market share improvement against its competitor.”

Stephen has led MTN Benin, an operation of 5,5 million subscribers, for five years. He replaces Hendrik Kasteel, who left the group in March. Since then, MTN Cameroon CFO Ebenezer Bodylawson has been acting CEO, steering the operation of more than 10 million subscribers.

Source: itnewsafrica

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) on Monday approved a EUR 88 million loan to Cameroon as direct budget support to finance the country’s COVID-19 crisis response.

The loan, to the country’s COVID-19 Crisis Response Budget Support Programme (PABRC), falls under the framework of the Bank’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Facility (CRF) of up to $10 billion, the institution’s main channel to cushion African countries from the economic and health impacts of the crisis.

In Cameroon, the pandemic has revealed the structural weaknesses of the country’s health system and economy, particularly the limited human and financial resources allocated to the health sector.

The PABRC’s goal is to check the spread of the coronavirus, to save lives and to mitigate its adverse socio-economic effects on the Central African country, particularly on households and businesses. The programme also involves longer-term actions to build the resilience of the economy as a basis for recovery.

It will support the implementation of a health response plan to improve testing and ensure early detection and rapid management of the virus, thus reducing case fatality and improving the recovery rate. It will also support the most vulnerable in society by paying family allowances to staff of companies unable to pay social security contributions as well as distributing health kits.

“Women play a key role in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 as wives, mothers, caregivers and community resource persons. The social protection and economic resilience actions under this support will particularly target women and the households and businesses headed by them,” Bank Acting Director General and Country Manager for Cameroon, Solomane Kone said.

Measures to sustain economic activity and safeguard employment will include value-added tax (VAT) credits to restore the cash position of enterprises as well as procuring inputs to support strategic agricultural value chains including poultry, fish, seeds and cereals. It will also support key small and medium-sized enterprises in the agribusiness, health and education sectors.

This operation complements the Bank’s $13 million special emergency project for Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa(CEMAC) member countries and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, which was approved earlier this month.

COVID-19 has broken out at a time when the Cameroonian economy, the largest and most diversified in the Central Africa, is recovering from the 2014 shock caused by a sharp fall in the world prices of the country’s main export products ­– oil, cocoa and timber. Without support, the spread of COVID-19 in Cameroon could compromise the reform drive and jeopardise the progress made in recent years.

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Cameroon was identified on 6 March 2020. By 22 June, the Central African country had more than 12,041 confirmed cases, including 308  deaths and 7,740  recoveries. The Centre (Yaoundé) and Littoral (Douala) Regions have the highest number of cases, representing about 55.8% and 32.2% of the total, respectively.

Source: APO Group

Cameroon has rolled out the Cameroon Customs Information System (CAMCIS), a fully-automated electronic customs clearance system to reduce face-to-face engagement amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

CAMCIS was built by Korean engineers and is the result of a 12-year-old public-private partnership said Edwin Fongod Nuvaga, Director General of Customs.

The system is modelled on UNI-PASS, used by the Korea Customs Service, and designed to handle large volumes of data, fully automate processes and procedures as part of a paperless system.

According to customs officials CAMCIS replaces the Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA ++) which has been in use in Cameroon since 2007.

Speaking at the recent launch of CAMCIS, Louis Paul Motaze, Cameroon’s Minister of Finance said the new system will significantly improve the business environment and spur profitability in the private sector by saving time and money.

The Minister highlighted the system’s operational speed, and said it will simplify import and export procedures and offer more security in the collection of customs revenue.

Customs duties and taxes are a key source of income for the government and in 2019 accounted for 14.3%.

“It is estimated that with CAMCIS, we would save a maximum number of days for our operations. Also, it will be possible to carry out customs clearance operations within one day after the validation of papers,” reads a statement issued by Cameroon Customs.

Séraphin Deffo Deffo, Chief Information Officer of CAMCIS, said the new system will guarantee traceability of all transaction, prevent fraud and corruption, enhance proper control of goods on transit, fasten procurement of customs duties and taxes, amongst others.

CAMCIS can be accessed and operated remotely using any digital device with a browser and an internet connection. It has three portals accessible to customs administration, economic operators and the general public.

Source: itweb.Africa

As expected, Cameroon’s Head of State, Paul Biya, signed an ordinance amending the 2020 Finance Law on June 3, 2020. This supplementary budget act reduced the initial budget by 11% or XAF542.7 billion in absolute terms.

According to the Presidential ordinance of June 3, 2020, which will be submitted to and probably adopted by Parliament during the ordinary session which opens on 10 June, the State’s 2020 budget falls from XAF4,951.7 billion to XAF4,409 billion.

Apart from this drastic reduction of the previous budget, the other major fact of this amended budget -following the coronavirus pandemic that is raging throughout the world- is the creation of a special trust fund called “Fonds spécial de solidarité nationale pour la lutte contre le coronavirus et ses répercussions économiques et sociales” (Special National Solidarity Fund for the fight against the coronavirus and its economic and social repercussions).

According to official sources, this Fund, financed by contributions from development partners as well as individuals and companies, will be endowed with CFAF180 billion for the second half of 2020.

In addition to taking care of Covid-19 patients and strengthening the health system (CFAF 58.7 billion), strengthening research and local production of pharmaceutical products (CFAF 8.1 billion), this Fund will dedicate CFAF 98.7 billion to economic and financial resilience actions, and CFAF 14.5 billion to social resilience.

According to internal sources at the Ministry of Finance, the last two budgeted funds mentioned above relate to the various support measures already taken or to be taken by the government to support Cameroonian enterprises and households in the face of the ravages caused by the pandemic.

The third major fact in the amended budget of June 3, 2020, is that all the initial allocations of public administrations have been revised downwards. The administrations concerned include the Presidency of the Republic, whose envelope has been cut by about CFAF15 billion, according to a credible source. Only three institutions escaped these budget cuts. They are the National Assembly, the Senate, and Elections Cameroon, the body in charge of organizing elections. The latter is actively preparing the first regional elections in the history of Cameroon. These elections are scheduled for October 2020.

Culled from Business in Cameroon

The African Development Bank (AfDB) announced Thursday evening, the launch of an independent investigation into allegations of prevarication against its president, Nigerian Akinwumi Adesina, the only candidate for re-election to a new term.

The Abidjan-based pan-African development institution finally gave in to the demands of the United States, which was dissatisfied with the internal investigation that had totally exonerated Adesina from serious accusations made by a group of “whistleblowers” such as “unethical behaviour, personal enrichment and favouritism”.

“The Board (of Governors of the AfDB) agreed to authorize an independent review of the “whistleblowers’ “allegations” against Mr. Adesina, according to a statement the Board’s bureau chairperson, Nialé Kaba, made at the end of a new meeting of the Board’s bureau on Thursday.

This “independent review should be carried out by a neutral, honest, high-calibre person with unquestionable experience and a proven international reputation, within two to four weeks maximum, taking into account the electoral calendar” of the Bank, which is due to elect its president at the end of August, Mrs. Kaba said.

Mr. Adesina, who was elected in 2015 to head the AfDB, one of the world’s five major multilateral development banks, has been the subject of a series of embarrassing accusations since the beginning of the year, which were disclosed in the press in April.

In a detailed report, the “whistleblowers” accuse him of favouritism in many senior appointments, especially of Nigerian compatriots, of appointing or promoting people suspected or convicted of fraud or corruption, and of granting them comfortable severance packages without sanction.

The charges were outrightly refuted by Mr. Adesina, 60, the first Nigerian to head the AfDB since its creation in 1964, who has repeatedly claimed his “innocence” and was quickly exonerated by the Bank on the basis of a report by its internal ethics committee.

“Mystification and Smoking”

But the United States, the AfDB’s second largest shareholder after Nigeria, demanded at the end of May that an independent investigation be launched, calling into question, in a scathing letter from US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the work of the ethics committee, and provoking a serious crisis in the pan-African institution.

“Considering the scope, seriousness and accuracy of the allegations against the Bank’s sole leadership candidate for the next five years, we believe that a more thorough investigation is necessary to ensure that the AfDB president enjoys the full support and confidence of shareholders,” Mr. Mnuchin wrote.

The decision to launch an independent investigation was taken “with a view to reconciling the different points of view,” Mrs. Kaba said.

While his re-election seemed assured six months ago, with the support of the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States, and following a giant capital increase of 115 billion dollars accepted in October 2019, Mr. Adesina’s position now appears increasingly fragile.

The charismatic man with a flamboyant style is nevertheless fighting like a handsome devil, vilifying his opponents, extolling his record and seeking every possible support.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari publicly expressed his support for him on Tuesday after receiving him in Abuja. A development economist, Mr. Adesina was his country’s agriculture minister before becoming AfDB president.

He also received the support of a dozen former African heads of state who signed a joint letter.

On the other hand, the AfDB’s non-African shareholders seem to be more circumspect about its action, according to observers.

The AfDB has 80 shareholder countries (54 African and 26 non-African countries, from Europe, America and Asia). It is the only African institution rated triple A by financial rating agencies.

Internally, Mr. Adesina’s management of staff has caused turmoil over the past five years, leading to the departure of many managers.

In an open letter dated May 30, a “group of AfDB African staff members” harshly criticized his management, accusing him of “mystification and smoke”, i.e. of communicating rather than acting, and of having “weakened” the Bank.

AFP

President of the African Development Bank AFDB Akinwunmi Adesina is in the news! A brewing crisis of succession at the Apex lending institution has put the highly reputed Nigerian former Agriculture minister in murky waters or to put it clearly, intense scrutiny. But support for him is increasing. The latest, from his country Nigeria.

Africa’s largest economy has opposed calls by the US treasury for an independent probe into whistle-blower allegations that Adesina awarded contracts to friends and relatives. An earlier, internal investigation had cleared him. On Tuesday, Nigeria’s leader Muhammadu Buhari met with Adesina, at the presidential villa in Abuja.

After that meeting, the country says it stands solidly behind the reelection of Adesina. Interestingly, it is not alone in this. Equatorial Guinea and Sierra Leone too are backing Adesina, who has also won praise from the African Union, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and is now gathering support on social media via #IStandWithAdesina.

But the dispute has drawn in other AfDB members. Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the UK are amongst those supporting the U.S. call for an external investigation.

There are many concerns. Thie issue to many is a bigger fight. For some this is all about US pressure. With us this morning is Piet Rampedi, Editor of the African times in Johannesburg South Africa.

Source: Africa News

The African Development Bank’s board agreed to an independent probe of its president, Akinwumi Adesina, after the U.S. rejected an internal investigation that cleared him of allegations of favoritism.

Africa’s largest multilateral lender decided on the inquiry after several governments backed U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s criticism of a bank-led examination into the allegations, the people said, asking not to be identified because details aren’t public.

Adesina, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, may have to step back from the role until the probe is completed, they said.

If there are questions from major shareholders on the appropriateness of an internal process, clearly it’s not harmful if that is put into a different light and looked at from the outside world with fresh eyes. We don’t necessarily require such or we don’t advocate for such.

Allegations

Unidentified whistleblowers accused Adesina, 60, of handing contracts to acquaintances and appointing relatives to strategic positions. The Abidjan-based lender declined to comment. Adesina didn’t respond to an emailed request seeking comment, while a call to his mobile phone didn’t connect.

The proposed investigation comes three months before the bank’s annual meeting, at which Adesina is the sole candidate to extend his five-year term. The AAA-rated lender’s 80 shareholders in October pledged to provide funding that will help to more than double its capital base to $208 billion.

Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland are among countries that wrote to the AfDB to back Mnuchin’s demands for professional outsiders to look into the allegations, the people said. A representative for the Nordics declined to comment.

US unhappy with exoneration

Mnuchin last week wrote to the AfDB to express “deep reservations” about the integrity of the lender’s ethics committee, after it exonerated Adesina.

The scope and detail of the allegations are serious enough for a further inquiry to ensure the AfDB’s shareholders have confidence in the bank’s leadership, Mnuchin said in the May 22 letter addressed to Niale Kaba, the chairwoman of the bank’s board of governors.

The U.S. is the AfDB’s biggest shareholder after Adesina’s home country of Nigeria. The demands for an independent probe are aimed at ensuring that if the allegations are baseless, the process of reaching that conclusion is public and transparent, one of the people said.

Shareholders of the AfDB include 54 nations on the continent and 27 countries in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia. It has an AAA rating from Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings.

“If there are questions from major shareholders on the appropriateness of an internal process, clearly it’s not harmful if that is put into a different light and looked at from the outside world with fresh eyes,” S&P analyst Alexander Ekbom said before the decision of the probe was taken. “We don’t necessarily require such or we don’t advocate for such.”

Support from within

Prior to Mnuchin’s letter to the board, African leaders including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Nigerian counterpart, Muhammadu Buhari, expressed support for Adesina and commended him for his efforts to help secure funds for Africa to deal with the fallout from the disease.

U.S. criticism of the bank’s internal processes follows comments by World Bank President David Malpass in February that multilateral lenders including the AfDB tend to provide loans too quickly, and, in the process, add to African nations’ debt problems.

The bank rebutted the statement, saying it undermines its governance systems, impugns its integrity and that there is no risk of “systemic debt distress” on the continent.

In March, the lender issued a $3 billion social bond to help African countries deal with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The bank also launched a $10 billion crisis-response facility for African nations.

Source: Agencies

The much-awaited bill ratifying the end of the CFA franc was adopted on Wednesday by the French Council of Ministers. This was disclosed by the spokeswoman for the French government, Sibeth Ndiaye.

“It was during an official visit to Ivory Coast in December 2019 that they (President Macron and French West African leaders) announced a historic reform of monetary cooperation that was to lead to the end of the CFA franc.

“As the President of the Republic had been able to stress, this symbolic end was to be part of a renewal of the relationship between France and African countries,” she said.

The text validates the transition of the CFA franc – used by eight French West African countries – to become the newly mooted Eco, a currency to be adopted by the entire West African bloc, ECOWAS.

It also marks the end of the centralization of foreign exchange reserves of the eight West African states with the French Treasury.

In concrete terms, the Central Bank of West African States will no longer have to deposit half of its foreign exchange reserves with the Bank of France. France will also have to withdraw its presence from the governance bodies.

The fixed parity of the future Eco currency with the euro will have to be maintained. Eight countries concerned are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

Critics of the CFA franc perceive it as one of the last vestiges of France’s colonial domination. The Central African version of the currency, XAF, however; continues to be used in six countries across the region.

About the twin CFAs

The CFA franc, its initials come from the French words for African Financial Community, was launched on December 26, 1945 as a “franc of the French colonies of Africa.”

Fourteen nations, divided into West and Central African groups, use the currency today. Their 155 million people account for 14 percent of Africa’s population and 12 percent of its GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Two different CFA Franc users. Eight countries comprise the West African Monetary Union (WAMU), Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. Its Dakar-based issuing authority is the Central Bank of the West African States (CBWAS).

Six others are in the Central African Economic and Monetary Union (CAEMU): Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Republic of Congo. Its issuing authority is the Cameroon-based Bank of the Central African States (BCAS).

Culled from Africa News

President Paul Biya has approved the execution of Air-France’s commercial flights from May 4 to June 30, 2020. This notice was sent to the Director-General of the Civil Aviation Authority in a letter sent by the Minister of Transport Jean Ernest Massena Ngalle Bibehe.

According to the letter, the flights will be executed alternatively, weekly, at the international airports of Yaounde-Nsimalen and Douala.

This agreement is however subjected to the observation of some key conditions. “Passengers on these flights will have to present a negative coronavirus screening test when boarding, and commit to self-confine at their expenses upon arrival in Cameroon,” the Minister of Transport wrote.

“Arrangements will have to be made for their monitoring in our country. The mandatory wearing of masks and compliance with barrier measures will also be imperative for these passengers and Air-France staff,” he added.

Last March, the Cameroonian government revealed that the first cases of coronavirus in the country were imported. Most of those infected had landed from Air-France’s commercial flights. Following this importation of the pandemic, Cameroon had decided to close all its borders.

With the confirmation that the President of the Republic has given his approval for the resumption of commercial flights of the French airline to Cameroon, are we moving towards the reopening of the country’s borders?

An Air France flight that landed on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 in Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital, was at the center of heated debates at the Douala International Airport because of its contaminated human contents.

The flight raised fear in the Central African country by many notches, as Cameroonians fear that their fellow Cameroonians and some Frenchmen returning to the country were bearers of the dangerous Coronavirus that has disrupted economic activity across the globe and killed thousands, especially in China where the virus started.

Written by Business in Cameroon and Cameroon Concord News