Recent economic reports overwhelm Cameroon

The World Bank, ADB, Standard & Poors, IMF and Ifc have stated that the first six months of the year are bad; be it in the field of mobile telephony, infrastructure, or governance.

Cameroon has just closed the first six months of its fiscal year 2015. And contrary to what the Department of Finances (Minfi) and the National Institute of Statistics (Ins) provided, the economic prospects are not good this year.

In an interview with Quotidien de l’Economie last Friday, André Fotso, president of Gicam, announced that he lost all hopes to see growth reach the forecasts made at the beginning of the year.

“We had even hoped to finally be able to reach the symbolic level of 6%. Nine months later, several internal and external factors have frustrated these forecasts and we are unfortunately obliged to review this ambition downward.”

The President of Gicam therefore confirmed the look already worn by some international and national institutions on Cameroon in these first months of the year, whether in the area of governance, in infrastructure, in the fight against high cost of living, or in the field of telecommunications.

Growth

For international institutions, Cameroon will not reach the over the 6.4% growth projected this year by the Minfi and the Ins. Even if their numbers differ from zero to a growth point, all revised downward their forecasts.

The more lenient of all of them is the financial rating agency Standard & Poors, which provides 5.5% growth in 2015. It is followed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which establishes its forecast at 5% (August 2015). The most critical report was issued by the World Bank. And according to the Bretton Woods Institution, Cameroon will do no more than 4% in 2015.

Governance

Just like the World Bank, the World Economic Forum made an unsatisfactory assessment for Cameroon in 2015. In a report entitled “The Global Competitiveness Report”, covering the period 2014/2015, the Agency puts Cameroon 116th out of 144.

What made Cameroon one of the less well-governed countries in the world. On a scale of 1 to 7, the country earned a rating of 3.66. It is average, but according to the World Economic Forum, is not enough to begin to rejoice in the situation of this country.

For example, regarding the institutional environment, the document ranked Cameroon 91st, with an average of 3.53/7. On the infrastructure component, the country ranks 126th (2.47/7), with the macroeconomic environment, it did better and was ranked 90th with a score of 4.45. Regarding the level of technological readiness, it was ranked 120th (note 2.76/7). Finally, higher education and training, the country was 117th (3.22/7).

Telecom

Despite its fanfare entry into the year 2015, including the entering of MTN and Orange into the 3G technology (150 billion FCFA), the market of telecommunications in Cameroon was not well places in the reports rendered in this year.

A report co-produced by the French Development Agency, the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, Orange & UNESCO laid eyes on Cameroon. Despite the 90% of mobile network coverage, the penetration rate of subscribers remained at 36%.

This is caused by, "the lack of clarity in the tax provisions, the high-cost licences or the heavy taxation of imports of tele-mobile phones". As concerns Internet connection, there is no better off.

The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), a coalition of 70 groups specialized in the field of ICTs (such as Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Ericsson), in a report released this year, Cameroon was 17th (out of 51 countries surveyed), with only 25.6% of the population connected to the Internet.

These external opinions on Cameroon are in addition to those produced by the National Agency of the Information and Communication Technologies (Antic), of which 76.40% of software used in public administrations are derived from counterfeiting.