Open for business

AMINOU BASSORO President of the Technical Commission on Privatizations and Liquidations

Having determined to liberalize its economy, Cameroon has not settled for half-measures. The privatization of the once-dominant state sector has been advancing steadily and systematically since 1990, when the Technical Commission on Privatizations and Liquidations was first set up.
The list of privatizations already carried out successfully includes companies operating in diversified sectors, from banana cultivation to oil refining, and from shipping to operating mobile telephone systems.
But the Commission’s president, Aminou Bassoro, points out that there is more work yet to be done. “The process has not finished,” he says. “The campaign is not over. We have three sectors yet to be privatized.” Those are water and energy, along with part of the telecommunications sector.

Also available are the Cameroon Development Corporation and Cameroon Airlines, although in the case of the latter, which carries a substantial debt, the Commision has not ruled out a liquidation if no buyer is found. “We have yet to define a strategy for Camair,” says Mr. Bassoro.
But aside from the still unresolved case of Camair, “there are a lot of things out there,” Mr. Bassoro insists, “a lot of opportunity, a lot of choice for investors.”
He would especially like American investors to take a greater interest in the privatization process and regrets that “investors, especially Americans, usually don’t know us” and therefore need to be convinced of the government’s seriousness of purpose.

One bright spot he points to is the multi billion-dollar Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project and the associated development of oil fields. This massive undertaking, backed by the World Bank, “shows a lot of confidence” and could inspire other investors to take a closer look at the opportunities to be found in the region.
Mr. Bassoro is also satisfied with the government’s fight against corruption, which, he notes, is written into the program agreed on in 1997 with the World Bank and the IMF. Moreover, he says, “the prime minister has put into place an anti-corruption commission, so we are trying to reverse this bad image.”