In the hustle and bustle of Cameroon’s messy economic capital dwells a quiet man, full of integrity, and about to float a pharmaceutical company worth several billions of francs.
By Micheal Kimbi Tchenga
With the global credit crunch weighing down on financial houses worldwide, not just anybody can walk into three commercial banks in Cameroon with a project file tucked in the armpit and come out with an 8 billion FCFA loan. That is just the feat Celestin Tawamba, 43, pulled in March 2009.
It did not only require that he brandish a project to plant CINPHARM, the first generic drug manufacturing company in the entire Central African sub region. His creditors simply trust him. He has borrowed before. He paid back in good time. He will certainly keep his tradition this time. “I have always counted on bank loans which I always entirely refund,” the emerging epitome of African entrepreneurship told Jeune Afrique.
With a loan in 2002, he set up La Pasta in Douala producing 25 tonnes of flour and spaghetti. Seven years on, he has scaled up output to 250 tonnes recording a brilliant 200 percent business growth, employing 500 regular workers on a 35 billion FCFA capital. The food company is now the biggest distributor of spaghetti in the CEMAC zone after taking up a deal with Panzani Cameroon in 2005.
Enjoying a rich experience with global audit giant Ernst & Young where he worked as supervisor from 1992 to 1996, Celestin Tawamba clearly bears the flagpole of a new generation of business executives in Cameroon.
In the generic drug production venture, Tawamba has secured a partnership with CIPLA, Indian-based global giant in the production of generic drugs and Elomatic, a Finnish company specialised in providing technical support in the industrial production of medication. His parent Cadyst Invest holding has since 2006 been running the former laboratories of French pharmaceutical group Rhone-Poulenc.
By 2010, CINPHARM is expected to produce about 60 different generic drugs with the help of CIPLA and also diversify into the laboratory certification of food products. In the next few years, the company will fully supply anti-malarials, anti-retrovirals, anti-parasite drugs, analgesics and other vital medications to the sub-regional market.
In support of this lucrative initiative, government has granted Cadyst Invest a six-year tax exoneration on all imports into the country. The pharmaceutical company is expected to employ about 300 workers.
Despite these achievements, Tawamba has resisted the pressure to get into politics in a society that compels huge investors like him to do so.
He entered records in 2006 as only business figure in the country to publicly declare his assets.//The Herald
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