The famous commercial sea liner that plies Nigeria-Cameroon popularly called ACHOUKA experienced a titanic system of wreckage two days ago. Our source in the Buea province of Southern Cameroons reported that the ship which was returning on a voyage from Tiko, was already within the precincts of Tiko when tragedy struck. The vessel was transporting both passengers and cargo started sinking and sources say all the passengers came out successfully from the boat but their goods went down with the ship.

It should be noted that an accident of that magnitude is a huge loss both to the owner and customer alike. At the time of filing this report total amount of damage runs to millions of francs.  Our correspondent in Tiko however added that the ship was hired by ACHOUKA Company and a war of words later erupted between the junior brother to the owner of the said ship and the captain. The said brother recruited a different captain and this voyage was to be the last one for the recalcitrant captain who on the day of voyage fought with his crew men.

Some passengers who boarded the vessel observed that some few minutes before the berthing at the Tiko wharf, the captain was rather, heading towards the no go area. All attempts by his assistant Captain to get him back on track met with a stone wall. He reportedly drove the ship into the obstacle and it started sinking.

According to a staff of ACHOUKA in Calabar Nigeria, the Captain was the first to jump into the flying boat that came to the passengers rescue.

By Sonne Peter in Tiko

After a failed Southern Cameroons mission that was aimed at re-launching the school year in the two Anglophone regions of the country, Prime Minister Philemon will travel from Yaoundé this Monday, March 13, 2017 to Douala, in the Littoral Region. During his stay of less than 24 hours in the economic capital, Head of Government accompanied by several ministers, will preside from 10 am in the conference room of the Sawa hotel in the Bonanjo quarter, the eighth Session of the Cameroon Business Forum (CBF). This year’s business meeting will be held under the theme “Enhancing the Competitiveness of the Economy through the facilitation of cross-border trade”.

Government sources say participants in the economic forum from the private and public sectors as well as civil society will also assess the status of the implementation of the resolutions adopted at the seventh session that held in the economic capital on March 15, 2016.

“The Cameroon Business Forum is the forum of dialogue par excellence between the inefficient CPDM regime and the very efficient private sector whose main tasks are to strengthen consultation between the public authorities and the business community, improving the business climate and supporting private sector development “.

Louis Paul Motaze, then Secretary General of the Prime Minister’s Office, commissioned the Cameroon Business Forum which was created in January 2009 by the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group.

By Rita Akana with files from CIN

The Health and Sanitation Company of Cameroon (HYSACAM) has signed a five-year contract with the Bamenda Urban Council in Southern Cameroons. The company has successful managed urban waste chain: collection, transport, treatment, recycling and recovery for the past 46 years. The French establishment deployed its team and heavy equipments in the Bamenda province of Southern Cameroons on February 22, 2017.  We understand the city of Bamenda is the 10th chief city that has contracted HYSACAM for the professional collection of household garbage in Cameroon.

There are 15 Cameroonian towns and cities served by HYSACAM. They include Yaoundé, Douala, Bafoussam, Ngaoundéré, Garoua, Maroua, Bertoua, Buea, Limbe, Kribi, Edéa, Ebolowa, Sangmélima, Meyomessala and Bamenda.

The CEO Michel Ngapanoun was quoted as saying that “We had to industrialize the urban waste collection and treatment methods and we created almost 4,000 jobs. So in 40 years, there has been an expansion. Little by little, together we have woven the canvas of cleanliness irrigating in the cities of Cameroon.”

By Sama Ernest

Senior economic commentators have revealed that Cameroon will lose approximately 150 billion FCFA if the strikes and ghost town operations orchestrated by the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium in Southern Cameroons is not brought to a close.  Some studies have already indicated that the decision by the Francophone Cameroonian authorities to shut down the Internet services in the Anglophone section of the country has already led to a loss of more than 500 million FCFA in the space of a month.

Economic operators in Nigeria’s Cross River State headquartered in Calabar have also opined that if the Anglophone crisis continues for several months, Nigerian exports to Southern Cameroons and by extrapolation, La Republique du Cameroun will record a drastic drop especially as trade had been intensified in recent years thanks to the construction of the 403 km road between Bamenda and Enugu in Nigeria.

Besides this, losses will also come from the import duties of Cameroonian products in Nigeria, as well as the export duties of Cameroonian imports from Nigeria. With its market of 170 million consumers, Nigeria is Cameroon’s major trading partner with about 20% of exports to Yaoundé. According to Trade Minister Luc Magloire Atangana Mbarga, trade between the two countries peaks at 382 million CFA francs a year.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium is capitalizing on the weakening state of the economy of the State of Cameroon and is forging ahead with plans for an independent state of Southern Cameroons.

Culled from Cameroon Concord News

There is sadness on the faces of the customers and the employees are speaking of additional work carried out manually. This is the situation of the banking sector in Southern Cameroons following the decision by La Republique du Cameroun to shut down internet services in the region. The situation is becoming more and more unbearable for banks and financial institutions located in the cities of Bamenda, Buea, Limbe, Kumba, Mamfe, Tiko, Muyuka, Kumbo, Wum and Ndop.

Our chief economic reporter in Bamenda revealed that customers of these banks and other micro financial structures can no longer cope with the queue and many eventually walk away after long hours waiting to be served. A senior aide to the Prime Minister and Head of Government hinted Cameroon Intelligence Report that “the only solution to the problem is the return of the Internet in Southern Cameroons.” The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications is maintaining a kind of deliberate silence as rumor within government circles now have it that the decision to disconnect the internet has instead harden up the Anglophones and recruited pro CPDM militants to join the struggle.

Yaoundé has kept on switching the internet on and off to allow the banks to function during peak periods. The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has announced that ghost town operations will continue every Mondays and Tuesdays and there are plans to stage the greatest boycott ever against La Republique on the 11^th of February.

By Staff Lady Rita Akana

The Minister of Finance Alamine Ousmane Mey has chaired the annual conference of officials of the central and external services of the Ministry of Finance.  Ousmane Mey revealed that some areas within his department were in need of some form of structural adjustments. The Biya acolyte identified excessive debt as one of them.

He said the ministry of finance will in 2017; ensure that investment will not hinder growth. The CPDM regime plans to rely on contributions from financial vote holders to finance development projects without necessarily consuming public resources. The Minister recommended that public and external debts be maintained at reasonable levels. He identified the mobilization of tax revenue as means of sustaining the country’s internal debt.

Alamine Ousmane Mey said finance officials should be more vigilant and discipline in the handling of public expenditures.  The Finance minister expressed satisfaction at the elasticity of the domestic economy.  Between 2010/2015, the Cameroon’s internal debt has increased from 1904 billion to 4489 billion FCFA representing 26.7%n Gross Domestic Product.

CRTV

The people of Nguti Sub division in Meme have upgraded the Southern Cameroons strike action plan to another level. Reports say the inhabitants have blocked all roads leading to the forest were timber is being exploited and taken to Nguti town for processing and identification.

The protesters have also revealed the dubious nature of the timber business that has been going on in their Sub constituency.  It is now known that during the identification process, unscrupulous Francophone bosses often write on the woods that they were harvested from a forest in Kribi or Douala.

A local resident of the area who spoke to our undercover reporter observed that, some traditional authorities had questioned the reason behind the labeling of Nguti timber as coming from Kribi and Douala but met with a stone wall.

Our Nguti informant also noted that the timber companies operating deep within the Sub Division all  pay their taxes to the Douala treasury and the Nguti people have no benefit from the cooperate social responsibilities of these companies except the Francophone Divisional Officers. At the time of filing this report, one of the leaders of the protest hinted that only the Consortium will give protesters directives on how to manage the present situation.

700 agents from the Ministry of Finance have been arrested and charged for diverting from the state coffers the sum of 1 billion 300 million FCFA. CIR gathered that the 700 agents are members of a vast network operating within the ruling CPDM crime syndicate.

Several members of the gang have been detained at the Central prison in Kondengui. We gathered that those involved were employed in the salary and human resource department including the IT services.  These officials were paid several times and on several occasions.  They even received salaries and wages for deceased persons and even the death benefits of some families instead of the rightful beneficiaries. The network also provided fictitious payslips to non civil servants.

The fraudsters benefited from a wide network within the Ministry of Finance. Those in the IT department were in charge of erasing all data from the computers that could trace any money received. This is not the first time that such a network has been dismantled by the Ministry of Finance. Each time it is uncovered with a media announcement, the mafia always succeeds in reappearing again in the ministry of finance where agents are ranked among the richest men and women in Cameroon.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

Cameroon’s 2015 corruption status report has been presented in Yaounde today the 29^th of December 2016. The report revealed that Cameroon lost over 170 billion FCFA as a result of corrupt practices.

The Chairman of the National Anti Corruption Commission, CONAC, Rev Dieudonne Massi Gams pinpointed the non-execution of public contracts as a major cankerworm that favors corruption. The Rev. who is making a fortune as head of the anti corruption body also hinted that some 45 projects were abandoned in 2015.

The report also indicated that over 3200 acts of corruption were denounced in 2015.The report comes at a time when CONAC, through decentralized anti-corruption units, is actively at work to take the fight down to ministries, state-owned corporations and parastatals.

The report is simply a government scheme aimed at deceiving the international community that the Yaounde regime is fighting corruption. Nothing was mentioned about the military attache’ arrested in France recently with over 1.5 million Euros.

The Presidents of Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and Equatorial Guinea are in Yaoundé where they will take part along with their counterpart Paul Biya this Friday at the extraordinary summit of Heads of State of Central Africa.

Central Africa’s Faustin-Archange Touadéra opened the ball of arrivals at midday yesterday. It was followed by the Chadian dictator, Idriss Deby and the celebrated election loser, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo as well as Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea.

The extraordinary summit was summoned in a context of economic crisis marked by falling prices of oil and raw materials and includes experts from the IMF and the BEAC. The French Minister of Finance, Michel Sapin, is also expected to take part in the meeting.

In view of the seriousness of the economic situation, a meeting of ministers in charge of Finance and Economy took place on Thursday 22 December in Yaoundé. The ministers of Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Chad and the Central African Republic were asked to finalize the dossiers to be submitted to the Heads of State today.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai