The Entrepreneur - Cameroon's Premier Economic & Business Journal

Cameroon president names new prime minister

By Tansa Musa

Cameroon's President Paul Biya appointed Philemon Yang, a former diplomat and senior official in the presidency, as prime minister in a government reshuffle on Tuesday, state media said. No reason was given for the removal of Ephraim Inoni, who had been premier for more than four years in the country of almost 19 million people, which has the biggest economy in central Africa.

Philemon Yang is Cameroon's New Prime Minister

By Ben Nakomo

The President of the Republic of Cameroon has appointed a new cabinet. The Cabinet comprises of recycled older members of previous ministerial appointments. The appointments provide an indication that the President is already strategising for the 2011 presidential race or succession. Having dropped a seasoned economist Chief Ephraim Inoni as Prime Minister, the President is seen playing chess as he appoints Mr Philemon Yang to pacify the more vocal rulling CPDM party officials and boisterous opposition politicians, all from the northwest region, from where the new Prime Minister hails.

Littoral Court of Appeal Nails Lapiro de Mbanga

By Snowsel Ano-Ebie

Cameroon’s popular musician Lapiro de Mbanga now has to go to the Supreme Court, in his search for justice in the case of looting and complicity in the destruction of property in the town of Mbanga during the February 2008 riots. His nine month old appeal case at the Littoral Court of Appeal in Douala , has not turned out in favour of the popular musician.

Gabon: Bye Bye Bongo; And What Next?

By Tazoacha Asonganyi

Most African countries lived under colonial rule for longer than they have been independent. Gabon is one of them; like most French "colonies", it had its independence in 1960. This means that of some 49 years of independence, Bongo was on stage as president for 42 years (1967-2009) before his recent demise! How clearly did he see the future of Gabon? How clearly will the person who succeeds him see it?

Cameroon on My Mind...

Scholars missing from public debate

By Mike Eldon 

For some time now, I have been struck by the absence of academics from our national public debate. Of course I’m not saying there is a perfect professorial silence. But when we talk about the sectors of society from where we expect to hear regular, prominent and authoritative voices, they rarely feature. We’ll hear from representatives of civil society, of the private sector and of faith-based organisations; we’ll endlessly hear from politicians, and occasionally from the technocrats in the public service. But where are those whom we specifically pay to think, to be the manufacturers of new ideas, to be our objective and informed observers and analysts of society, the people to whom we should be turning for new solutions?

Message by Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma on World Environment Day 2009

The term ‘rising sea levels’ has real expression in the Maldives and Tuvalu. These and other low-lying states are effectively threatened with submergence. The tides have already risen, and wholesale migration is a possible response. The front lines have already been breached. Elsewhere in the Commonwealth, we see the effects of climate change in poor crop yields, destructive storms, shrinking rainforests, dwindling fish stocks, thawing tundra, encroaching desert, flooded lowlands.

The Cameroon Dilema

By Denis A. Foretia, Atlanta, USA

Progressive societies thrive not only from constructive government economic policies but equally from a significant growth in private sector investments and marked involvement of the citizenry. The upward mobility in certain African countries can be directly, or at least, partially attributable to the implementation of fair investment policies in these politically stable societies. For the last decade, we have witnessed continued erosion of democratic and social institutions in Cameroon. We have seen the increasing proliferation and institutionalization of many corrupt practices throughout every sector of government and private institutions. Not surprising, there has been no indication of a reduction in capital flight and the handicapping of investment opportunities in our country.

GABON: President Omar Bongo Crosses the Great Divide

By Mathias Victorien Ntep

It is now official, it is a fact: President Albert Bernard Bongo, commonly known as Omar Bongo Ondimba has been dispatched to the Great Beyond by bowel cancer – not skin cancer. The man who received the highest office of Gabon, an oil-rich country south of Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea, 42 years ago, kicked the bucket on June 7, 2009, at the age of 73 in a Spanish hospital in Barcelona.

An Agenda for Progress at a Time of Global Crisis: A Call for African Leadership

Crisis facing Africa can be turned into an opportunity

Panel of world leaders states that clear-sighted African leadership and international partnership are needed to contain the crisis and to pioneer a new development model

The Africa Progress Panel (APP), chaired by Kofi Annan, has called on African leaders to turn the current global economic meltdown into an opportunity for the continent on the basis of shared responsibility with their international partners. The financial crisis has underscored Africa’s vulnerability, notwithstanding a decade of solid progress, the APP said at the launch of its annual report today. The key conclusion of the report is that Africa needs to drive its own development agenda as the basis for partnership and shared responsibility for progress. “The global economic crisis can serve as a wake-up call for both African leaders and their international partners,” the Panel said.

As Global Financial Crises Bites.....

Nigeria Awaits Appointment of New Central Bank Governor

By Damilola Olajide
 
As the nation awaits the new helmsman at the Central Bank of Nigeria to be
confirmed, there are anxieties over the monetary and fiscal policies that
will be pursued by the apex bank during his tenure. The fears are
predicated on what successive apex bank governors did: discontinue with
the policies of their predecessors. While it is uncertain if there won't
be policy change, what is important is whatever the monetary and fiscal
policies change might be, the bank consolidation needs to be sustained and
not reversed.