Cameroon post reports that Senator Nfor Tabetando, February 2, in Buea, declared, before elite of the Southwest Region, that he and Senator Peter Mafany Musonge, are at the root cause of the internet shutdown in the Northwest and Southwest Regions. The declaration provoked disproval from the hundreds of the sons and daughters of the Southwest that attended a conference convened by Sen Mafany Musonge, former Prime Minister.

Moderating deliberations, Chief Barrister Tabetando, in his comments said after he read some ignominious things about him on the social media in relation to the crisis of the Anglophone Problem, he met Senator Musonge and they asked the Government to shutdown internet in the two regions so as to frustrate the Anglophone activists from communicating the goings on to the outside world. Grumbling of disapproval rumbled through the crowd and diatribes were hurled at the Tabentando and Musonge as voices were heard accusing them of shutting down communication between 6 million people in their selfish interest. Some people asserted that if Anglophones fail in their current bid to regain their freedom, the blame should fall squarely on the shoulders of Tabetando and Musonge and other servants of the ruling CPDM party and the Biya regime.

They also accused Chief Atem Ebako, who gave a discourse in which he attempted to turn Southwesterners against Northwesterners. According to them, Chief Atem Ebako was fostering the Biya regime’s divide and rule tactics. The shutting down of the internet since January 17, in the two Anglophone Regions, has brought untold hardship to citizens. Businesses have had to endure loses in billions of FCFA due to the shutdown of the internet, which is the medium through which almost every business transaction is carried out. Financial institutions, companies, NGOS, cyber cafes, they observed, are employing thousands of young Cameroonians who all depend on the internet.

They further observed that Tabetando and Musonge who chanted President Biya’s mantra of Cameroon being one and indivisible, were the ones who divided the country aggravating the plight of Anglophones who are wallowing in marginalization. Tabetando, Musonge, Atem and some members of Government were in Buea to crusade for parents in Anglophone Cameroon to send their children back to school. Parents asserted that Tabetando and Musonge were of the typewriter age and could not have known that the internet, which they asked the Government to shut down, remains one of the most vital tools for education today.

That internet is used as a vehicle for distant learning; it is a virtual classroom in many countries today; it is the world’s biggest research laboratory and a library for both students and teachers. Meantime, Senator Mbella Moki Charles, who also attended the conference, castigated Chief Atem Ebako for his xenophobic pronouncements. “If you claim to support President Biya, you must walk in his step,” Mbella Moki asserted.

Most of the people who attended the conference described Chief Atem Ebako’s pronouncements as hate speech. Chief Njie Mandenge asserted: “It appears some of these people have not heard or read about what happened in Rwanda. This is the kind of language that brought about the Rwanda genocide. You can quote me anywhere,” he stated.

The postnewsline

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Rita Akana

07.Feb.2017

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he client base of Nexttel, telecoms company owned by the Vietnamese group Viettel, now has 3 million subscribers, we learned on the website of the operator, who was the very first to receive a telecoms licence with the authorisation to operate the 3G technology in Cameroon,

In 2017, this operator who started its activities in Cameroon in September 2014, should be able to attract even more clients, since it is planning to also take position on the 4G segment, whose experimental launch it announced earlier this year.

As a reminder, through Nexttel, Cameroon became the first African market of Vietnamese group Viettel in the first quarter 2016, with global revenues of FCfa 21 billion (USD 35.9 million), the group officially announced this past October.

BRM

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Rita Akana

02.Feb.2017

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In Cameroon, a government-ordered internet blackout aimed at quashing unrest in the English-speaking regions is hurting the local economy. Banks have been paralyzed and salaries left unpaid.

In Buea, capital of the English-speaking Southwest region of Cameroon, Carlos Company Limited offers hotel and dry cleaning services, employing 140 people.  Some of them have gathered outside the company's headquarters to voice their grievances. They haven't received their salaries for January. Staff representative Nmbakop Terence says they can't pay their electricity and other bills at home.

"How can we live without the internet?" he asks rhetorically. "It is quite difficult. I think the government should do something to solve this situation because it is getting out of hand," Terence told DW.

Gaela Dickson, proprietor and general manager of Carlos Company Limited, says the absence of the internet is stopping them from accessing company bank accounts.

"We just woke up one morning to discover that there was no internet and that was an order from above." Dickson said they were expecting clients from abroad to book their services, but those clients can't see or access their website. The cost of the internet blackout to his business is mounting.

"Over the past three weeks, I have already run up a deficit of 50 million CFA, that around $100,000," he told DW.

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DW

01.Feb.2017

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The billions of FCfa sunk every year in the State's operations are back on the agenda. The fabulous lifestyle of the State is back on the front news. In short, everyone is again talking about the quality of the public expenditure. The topic was at the heart of the presentation given by the Minister of Finance during the Cabinet meeting held on Thursday, 26 January 2017. Alamine Ousmane Mey was addressing the Prime Minister and all members of the government. The Minister of Finance was first and foremost talking to those who are the main payment mandate issuer of the State’s budget. He reminded them of the following requirements: discipline, responsibility and quality of the expenditure.

It is not the first time the alarm is rung. These past years, the President himself came back to this topic on several occasions. “I want to once again bring your attention to the necessity of streamlining the spending and improve their quality in an international environment marked by the scarcity of financial resources”, Paul Biya repeated to the government, in his special address during the 9 December 2014 Cabinet meeting. The Head of State acknowledged a sad fact: “I unfortunately noticed that the quality of the public expenditure continually worsened, particularly with an accumulation of expenditure whose necessity is not evident”. 

Paul Biya even gave some examples to illustrate the issue: unbridled increase in the spending related to goods and services, excessive increase in the number of missions especially abroad, multiplication of the number of committees and inappropriate projects or excessive increases in subsidies. A few days later, the President came back on this preoccupation in his address to the nation on 31 December.

Years have gone by. And on this 26 January 2017, the Minister of Finance brought the attention of his colleagues on the number, frequency and volume of missions abroad, or on the fuel, water, electricity and telephone expenditure. The problem is thus set again today in almost identical terms. It is as if nothing changed after all the interventions of the President and despite the denunciations made by the general opinion on the State’s wastefulness.

Crisis in the CEMAC zone

This time however, the problem must be taken very seriously, based on the comments of Minister Alamine Ousmane Mey. Indeed, the situation is grave considering economic crisis which affects the countries in the Central African Economic Community (CEMAC). And Cameroon has not been spared, even though it has shown the best resilience in the sub-region.

Nevertheless on 26 January 2017, the Minister of Finance recalled that the quality of the public expenditure is one of the solutions to come out of the crisis. This was clearly mentioned during the Extraordinary Summit which gathered the CEMAC Heads of State in Yaoundé this past 23 December.

The 26 January Cabinet meeting thus decided that Cameroon must implement “an adequate budget policy, in particular through significant cuts in the lifestyle of the State and streamlining transfer spending”. But we must go further than a simple budget regulation. The Cabinet also prescribed: “the strict respect of the quarterly commitment quotas, limiting credit transfers and streamlining basic spending”.

Once again the problems linked to the public spending are on the forefront in Cameroon. And the situation is critical. And everyone knows what is expected.

BIC

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Rita Akana

28.Jan.2017

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The economic lost estimated to have been inquired due to the complete shutdown of internet connection in the North West and South West Regions since Tuesday January 17, 2017 is now estimated at Billions of FCFA economic analyst report.
This is due to the fact that not only have all banks and money transfer establishments been shut down in the above mention regions, but equally all business and companies that function primarily with the used of internet connection is completely out of business.
While the government continue to be silent as to the reason behind the shutting down of internet connection in the Anglophone Regions, the blackout which came barely two hours after the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium was banned is seen by political observers as a move by the government to prevent the sharing and receiving of any information concerning the current political atmosphere in the two English speaking regions.

These days in the South West and North West Regions, all financial transactions are now carried out in the neighboring French speaking regions of the country while reporters of both the broadcast and print media faced an almost impossible situation filling in reports from these regions.

MTN, Orange, Nexttel and Camtel, the main mobile telephone and internet service providers in Cameroon are reported to be acting on instruction of the government as explained by a senior official of one of the leading communication company in the country. The official who pleaded for anonymity told this reporter that it is within the governments’ rights to come in and regulates the sector from time to time. Backed by the license they issued to the mobile/internet service providers.
 
It should be recalled that last Tuesday’s internet blackout came after the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication headed by Minister Minette Libom Liken send messages using the various mobile telephone companies to mobile users urging them to refrain from spreading false information through the social media. Adding that it is punishable by the Cameroon penal code with defaulters risk paying close to five million or years of imprisonment.
At the time of this report, internet connection was yet to be reestablished in the North West and South West Regions as business activity and livelihood of the populace of these two regions continue to drop as the days go by. As regard the distribution of information concerning the current political situation in the country which happened to be the main reason behind the shutting down of the internet, Cameroonians residing in the two English speaking regions have resorted to the use of short message service, SMS. 

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23.Jan.2017

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While chairing on 18 January 2017 in Yaoundé, the discussion panels on the power grid update programme for the period covering 2016 to 2022, the Minister of Water and Energy (Minee), Basile Atangana Kouna, revealed that Cameroon will invest FCfa 800 billion in this endeavour.

To this effect, the Minee indicated, the management of said programme was given to the Société nationale de transport d’électricité (Sonatrel – National Power Grid Company) created on 8 October 2015. With regards to the financial aspect, he assured, the Cameroonian government has initiated successful approaches with some international lenders. Which for example led, according to the Minee, the World Bank Board of Directors to approve, in December 2016, a financing of USD 325 million for a section of the power grid project. The signature of the corresponding loan agreement is imminent, the Minister specified.

Basile Atangan Kouna also welcomed the fact that loan to finance structures to remove the energy to be produced by the Warak hydroelectric plant (75 MW) on the Birni River was signed in 2016. Moreover, still based on his comments, the processes to raise the funds for the “Yaoundé Loop” component awarded to the Spanish company Elecnor are moving along smoothly. The signature of the corresponding loan agreement should be completed latest by February 2017.

S.A

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Rita Akana

19.Jan.2017

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