On June 20, 2023, Cameroon’s Acting Minister of Industry, Fuh Calistus Gendry, visited the site that housed the Cellucam, the former public paper pulp maker that went bankrupt in 1982.

The official went to check progress made on the site’s rehabilitation and according to local newspaper Cameroon Tribune, Cametal, the company in charge of the project, failed the contract’s terms. Gendry addressed the company’s management with a formal notice urging them to get back in line.

Indeed, it appears that since it took over the contract, on July 8, 2021, Cametal mostly engaged in scrap metal collection, and has not met its obligations regarding the dismantling and deconstruction of scaffolding, pollution control, and equipment decontamination, or building rehabilitation. The project’s monitoring committee pointed out that the progress rates reported by the contractor were not always correct.

Once rehabilitated, the former Cellucam site is expected to host several companies. One of these is the Société camerounaise d’industrialisation et d’exploitation du bois (Scieb), which plans to set up a wood technopole on the site. According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the Cameroonian government on May 12, 2020, in Yaoundé, 80 billion FCFA should be invested in this project.

Source: Business in Cameroon