Comment: Profile of an imploding nation

Companies investing in Cameroon should beware of the huge linguistic split that exists in the country and the institutional infighting about the spoils of corrupt practices and dubious foreign aid programmes.

Back in 1961 the English-speaking south Cameroon voted to join the French-speaking Republic of Cameroon. Since then French has dominated all of the country’s institutions, even in the English-speaking region around the city of Bamenda. The English-speaking community complains that it cannot obtain jobs such as teachers and other public sector position and suffers widescale discrimination.

Recently this unrest has broken out into riots leading to 100 arrests and numerous injuries. Over 1000 lawyers are also on strike claiming that they cannot use English or apply common law in the law courts. The Cameroon government is also closely monitoring social media communications and anyone propagating hearsay is likely to face imprisonment or a heavy fine.

Companies operating in the mobile telecoms market are having to deal with a political rift between the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications and the telecoms regulatory authority over the issuing of operating licences and ministerial insistence that they should receive appropriate “fees”. In the banking sector a recent investigation has also uncovered a system of widely practiced embezzlement over a twelve-year period involving over-invoicing and fictitious invoices. Although investigations have centred on a few top executives no French managers working at the banks have been called to account. Meanwhile illegal logging is fast reducing the country’s timber stocks with losses amounting to 1.8 million acres of forest since 2002. Much of this has been due to weak policing out of fear that controls on logging operations by foreign countries will reduce foreign aid for infrastructure projects.

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