JSM seeks 13 billion CFA francs from the State

Justin Sugar Mills (JSM) company, which launched a project for the construction of a sugar complex in 2012 for 60 billion Cfa francs in Batouri in the region of the East-Cameroon, have demanded 13 billion CFA francs from the State for breaching the contract.

The government entrusted the project to the Moroccan company, Cosumar, in February 2015 without their knowledge.

In a letter addressed to the head of the Cameroonian state on May 29, 2015, JSM explained that this represents "the direct financial prejudice suffered because of the many malicious hostile attitudes towards the project, particularly, by the Cameroonian Minister of Industry, Emmanuel Bonde.”

Evoking this case, Cameroon is liable to the penalties provided by the bilateral conventions for the protection of investors that it signed with Great Britain and the Netherlands. JSM revealed that the resumption of this project by the Moroccan company, Cosumar, seems mortgaged.

It was disclosed that a week after the designation of the Moroccan firm for the resumption of the project, the Minister of industry organized a press release on February 26, 2015 where the Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic notified the Prime Minister Philémon Yang.

In a response dated March 2, 2015, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh demanded the head of Government "to map out the point for the sugar agro industrial project by Justin Sugar Mills, in consultation with the Minister of industry, with adequate proposals for a good end of the project.

The release by the Secretary General of the Presidency, which did not state the removal of Justin Sugar Mills from Batouri, could well justify the lack of progress recorded on the change of investors from February 2015 in which the Minister of Industry stated a rapid closing of the transaction with Cosumar.

In a recent article published in Quotidien de l’Economie, there was more reluctance to engage in a contentious project.