Vietnamese, Cmr'nian shareholders at daggers drawn over Nextel mgt.

Viettel Cameroun S.A, the mobile operator of Nextel, has been rocked with managerial crisis, less than one month after start up.

Investigations carried out by our reporter show that the delay in the launching of the activities of the company which has a one year monopoly over 3G network is actually being caused by internal conflicts.

The troubles of the company stem from the non-respect of terms of agreements by the Vietnamese vis-à-vis its Cameroonian partners.

A senior staff of the company told Cameroon Journal on condition of anonymity that contrary to norms that guide the creation and functioning of multinational companies in the country, there are only 9 Cameroonians among its 56 top management staff. Our source said the nine are mere figure heads – that management proper is in the hands of Vietnamese managers.

CJ uncovered that not long ago; over 300 more Vietnamese were brought in to add to the 200 who are already employed in the company. The first group of 200 were imported under the pretext that they were to manage the technical operations of the company.

Cameroonian staff, however, have said most of the employees occupy positions which could just as well be efficiently handled by qualified Cameroonians.

Some of the posts, the agitating Cameroonian employees said, require background knowledge of Cameroonian culture, laws and the physical landscape of the country. They hold that the Vietnamese do not have good knowledge of the realities on the ground and that would hinder the growth of the company.

CJ equally learned on good authority that the files of the employees from Vietnam who have already been in Cameroon for about a year and a half are 100% irregular. Our source said their documents would have been updated if the persons in charge of the update were Cameroonians.

Cameroonians who are protesting have based their argument on prime ministerial decree number 93/571/PM of July 1972 which lays down the conditions for the employment of foreigners in Cameroon. The text provides limits to the employment of foreigners to work as ‘manoeuvres’, labourers, employees and agents.

Cameroonian employees of the company say Viettel does not respect the text. Administrative posts, human resource management, finances, accounting, legal advisers are occupied by Vietnamese in spite of available Cameroon experts in the domains.

The board of directors of the company held a working session in Ndawara in March 2013, during which the Board Chair, Baba Dan Pullo insisted and got it added among the resolutions of the meeting, that Cameroonians should be trained within the framework of transfer of technology as an obligation for the company.

A training and integration program was supposed to be organised in Hanoi for the best employees in all domains before the launching of the activities of the company. The program never took place.

A written complaint against the Vietnamese director general of the company; a copy of which CJ is keeping, indicts him of treating his Cameroonian collaborators with disdain.

“He treats his collaborators as ordinary customers; this could create permanent conflict within the management team. The director general also is not transparent and disrespects the laws governing telecommunications in Cameroon and equally has disregard for shareholders’, it reads partly.

The principle of dual signature which was instituted by the Chamber of Commerce to protect the interest of Cameroonian employees in multinational companies based in the country is not respected by the Vietnamese.

Cameroonian shareholders are completely cut off from the management of the company despite the fact that it was thanks to the Cameroonian shareholders that the company got authorisation to operate in the country.

Reports indicate that the rising scuffle between the Cameroonian and Vietnamese employees of the mobile telephone provider started about four months to its official launch.

The managing director Moise Bayi, has dismissed the claims stating that the Vietnamese executives were transferred to the company for technology purposes and to improve the company’s image by using their own infrastructure rather than that of their competitors.

Before then, there was a conflict between Viettel and its Cameroon partner- a conflict later resolved in March when Nguyen Duy Tho, managing director of Viettel Global JSC, and Baba Danpullo, the head of Bestinver Cameroon, the Vietnamese company’s local partner, signed a deal which stated that Danpullo would remain as chairman of the board at Viettel Cameroon, keeping 30% of capital. In exchange, Nguyen was to become deputy chairman of the board while the company, which is a limited liability company, was transformed into a public limited company with 200million FCFA in capital.

The company obtained its licence to operate in Cameroon since December 2012 and had announced that its activities were to be launched in January 2014. The launching was postponed following several differences.

Employees of the company were complaining of poor working environment and low salaries compared to those paid to workers of MTN, and Orange. The differences which were apparently buried have resurfaced barely a month after the launch of the company.