The Entrepreneur - Cameroon's Premier Economic & Business Journal

Cameroon Enshrines Accountability in Public Finance and Paves the Way for Regional Intergration and Trade

By Ben Nakomo

Cameroon's national assembly has adopted a bill to ensure transparency and accountability in the management of state budget. This was during the plenary session of Tuesday, December 11, 2007 in Yaounde. The bill is aimed at reforming the state financial and accounting frame work. If promulgated into law, the bill will replace the 1962 ordinance. It reaffirms the powers of the audit courts, and empowers the different stake holders involved in the management of public finance. The bill shall completely overhaul the state accounting core. The bill was defended by the Minister of Finance, Essimi Menye. Still at the National Assembly, another bill to authorise the Head of State to ratify the judicial cooperative agreement with member states of the economic community of central African states was also adopted. According to this bill defended by the Vice-Prime Minister, Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, Ahmadou Ali, economic and legal integration will be fostered. This implies that criminals can not take advantage of the absence of boarders between ECCAS member states to commit crimes in one country and escape to another. The adoption of this bill therefore implies there will be no hiding place with the eleven member states of ECCAS as criminals can easily be arrested in one country and extradited to the other. This bill allows Cameroon to take the lead in enshrining regional institutions for the Central African sub-region.

© The Entrepreneur Newspaper 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Taxes in Africa

Re-working The Nigerian Tax System

By Thompson Ayodele

The present administration has indicated its interest to reform the current tax system. The reform is coming as a result of series of complaints by companies operating in Nigeria over problems associated with the current tax regime. The proposed tax reform is aimed at addressing multiple taxations and the need to strike a balance between governments’ lawful need for revenue and the desire to encourage investors. Over the years, there has been several policies aimed at tax compliance by individuals as well as corporate organizations. The bottomline of such policies is the desire by all tiers of government to derive high revenue from tax. The effect of this is that all tiers of government end up collecting taxes for the same purposes under different guises. Under this circumstance, one thing which policymakers are yet to understand is that the expected high revenue would not be realised and compliance costs would be high. From the consumer standpoint, it has left so much businesses with no alternative than increasing the price of their services. This has left the burden incidence to shift to the consumers, many of whom are living under uncertain income realities.

USA: New home sales drop to lowest in 12 yrs

By Jeanine Aversa (AP)

The housing market plunged deeper into despair last month, with sales of new homes plummeting to their lowest level in more than 12 years. The slump worsened even more than most analysts expected, heightening fears that the country might be thrust into a recession. New-home sales tumbled 9 percent in November from October to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 647,000, the Commerce Department reported Friday. That was the worst sales pace since April 1995.

Manu Dibango: “I am not here for the past, I am here for tomorrow”

The father of Cameroon jazz music and soul makossa waxing strong in a 50-year marriage with his sax

By Akere-Maimo (with contributions from Akara Ticha - CRTV-Cameroon Calling)

  Cameroon’s ace star, Manu Dibango was the pool of attraction at the Yaounde Conference Centre on Saturday, December 22, 2007 as he celebrated 50 solid years of a successful music career. It was a crowd-pulling event as the 74-year old veteran Manu treated his Cameroonian fans once more to a special menu of his rich and fascinating repertoires. The audience was more than overjoyed to watch Grand Manu live as he caressed his gold-coloured sax with much dexterity and electricity. To join him celebrate his golden jubilee were his friend artists from home and abroad. Present at the occasion was a cross-section of government officials, VIPs, the diplomatic corps, dignitaries and lovers of jazz music. The bald-headed and thick-lipped saxophonist of international repute, well known for his roaring distinctive-musical laughter and movable diamond fingers spoke to CRTV Cameroon Calling’s own culture man, Abel Akara Ticha.

Poor Transport Flow Paralysing Douala’s Economy

Cry! O, poor roads, ‘Tar Me!’ (Drawing inspiration from a satirical poem by Minimuz the poet, decrying the nature of roads and urban city decay in Cameroon in a poetry collection, ‘Chains of Struggle’)

 

By Akere Maimo Ano-Ebie, on Assignment in Douala

 

Eating they say is good but too much eating is not good either. For sure, health experts say this to discourage obesity since it can easily lead to undesirable looks and kill the whole essence of human beauty. And possibly lead to internal decay of vital organs in the human body. If we take our cities as beauty crowns or citadels adorned with sparkling wonders and awe-stricken fashion, there is every reason in planet earth to treat them with much care and good, in like manner which a medical doctor would care for the internal health of humans, especially the pot-belly obese ones.  That is, the kind of treatment that would enable the cities not to grow out of shape, not to suffer from perpetual wear and tear, but to maintain a steady crest of growth. Come to think of it, when a city beauty such as Douala is abandoned to itself, there is enough cause for development experts and town planners to cry out aloud and clear.

Are You a Dragon?

Your Chinese Horoscope

Dragons were born in 1904, 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988 and 2000. Dragons are bold in business, successful and full of vitality. Dragons normally have considerable influence and power which is important to them. Dragons are rarely ignored – when they enter a room everyone notices and they’ll do anything to retain this influence. They are determined to the point of aggression in pursuing their goals. Averse to any form of routine, they’re eccentric and stubborn and nothing phases them.

The case for servant leadership

Dr William Kimuyi (New African)

What Africa needs for its redemption is servant leadership instead of the self-serving governance that the continent is famed for. Our leaders should add the servanthood attitude to their attributes and demonstrate that their primary motivation for seeking to lead the people is rooted in a deep desire to serve and help out. Africa needs new leadership. The mode of leadership by which most of the countries on the continent have been run since independence lacks remedial capacity because it isn’t development compliant. African leadership lacks the radicalising edge. I know some African nationalists might oppose this opinion alleging pandering to the well-worn Western view that attributes Africa’s poverty to poor leadership. That is part of the problem.

Free trade is Good for Consumers

By Jasson Urbach

In his budget speech last week Finance Minister Trevor Manuel urged SA to take the initiative in reducing artificial barriers to trade, suggestions that should be welcomed and applauded. History shows us that the best way to move from poverty to prosperity is to reduce barriers to trade. Adam Smith wrote about this over 200 years ago, showing that trade is the engine of economic growth. Since the early 1990’s SA has reduced the level of tariffs from an average of approximately 23 per cent to an average of 8.2 per cent, as well as the variation of tariffs from 13,609 to 6,420 commodity lines. But these figures hide some important intricacies. There are significant tariff peaks hidden in the average. For instance, most articles of apparel and clothing are afforded protection up to levels of 40 per cent.

NEPAD-Spanish fund for the empowerment of women calls for proposals

The NEPAD Secretariat has made a second announcement for proposals under the NEPAD-Spanish Fund for Empowerment of Women, following the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Spanish Government in support of the empowerment of African women. The NEPAD Secretariat will receive this support through the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECI). On behalf of the NEPAD/AECI Steering Committee, the NEPAD Secretariat is inviting proposals, for the implementation of this project from institutions involved in implementing programmes that have the potential to unlock women’s economic potential, fight poverty, close gender gaps, empower women, are contributing to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the attainment of sustainable development.

Training journalists to be trainers

Entrepreneur Newsroom

The NEPAD Training the Trainer programme, run in collaboration with the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ), has just completed its third seminar. The objective is to provide African journalists with skills and techniques which they, in turn, can pass on to their colleagues. In just 18 months NEPAD has trained over 50 journalists from Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Swaziland, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. “We will continue with the programme next year until all the countries in Africa are covered”, said Thaninga Shope-Linney, NEPAD General Manager, Communications and Outreach.