BY NDUMBE BELL GASTON
Reports coming from CEMAC financial circles since March 31 to July 2019 show some positive strides but much remains to be done, especially in the aspects of structural reforms, BEAC international funds transfer restrictions, and the shortages experienced in enabling foreign exchange to back up production and maintenance of domestic suppliers.
At the 9th ordinary session of the CEMAC Economic and Financial Reforms Programme also known as PREF-CEMAC, Henry Claude Oyima, formely PDG of BGFI Bank, and Jean Claude Ngbwa, former president of the Financial Markets Commission, the then regulatory body of the Douala Stock Exchange, were both installed as the new Board Chair and General Manager of the fused regional stock exchange called BVMAC with headquarters in Douala.
Professor Daniel Ona Ondo who presided over the installation, applauded PREF-CEMAC, for having taken an irreversible and historic decision to fuse two stock exchanges which according to him, demonstrates the determination of the leaders to move the region forward towards socio-economic integration.
“I thank you for the confidence that you administrators have shown me for the management of BVMAC and I am going to contribute towards the new market’s dynamism and to promote the culture to encourage many more enterprises to join and bring in oxygen”, declared Oyima, the new Board Chair.
Prof Ondo, the president of the Financial Markets Commission charged the newly appointed to create innovations that would introduce new mechanisms to facilitate financial transactions of the economies of the zone.
This development has come at a time reports at the 9th session predict the growth rate to move from a recession rate of 1.8% in 2018 to 3% by year’s end.
However, there are worries: The Antoine Ngakegni report of March 31, 2019 at the 8th session revealed the macro-economic fragility of the sub-region and called for the rapid implementation of reforms by all. Some of them include accelerating regional integration through infrastructural diversities, good governance, a more conducive environment and capitalise on measures that will be less affected by exogenous traumas. Other reforms that may affect international cooperation through monetary, fiscal and budgetary policies cannot be neglected, indicated the Ngakegni report.
Other developments that should be tele-guided by BVMAC, businessmen and other stakeholders is GICAM’s outcry in the BBC recently where the president, Celestin Tawamba enumerated the dangers inherent in the acute downturn of foreign currency reserves, some of which will negatively affect the importation of inputs for the domestic market. Reports say GICAM had also written to the Prime Minister Dion Ngute about this. Reasons given for this downturn say that the currency reserves were over-used, poorly managed and not refueled due to the fallen oil prices of the producers in the zone.
BEAC also took up the fight and countered currency access with a number of bank restrictions which commercial banks say the measures are counter-productive, both to those in the region and especially to those outside it.