The Prime Minister, Head of Government has declared the three regions in the country “economically stricken areas.” In a decree signed Monday September 2, 2019, Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute says that the zones concerned are the North West, South West and Far North regions.
This status, according to the laws in force in the country, allows the State to offer various incentives to companies wishing to settle in these areas affected by insecurity. These incentives take the form of tax exemption for a period of 3 years.
Since 2013, the region of the Far North of Cameroon is the victim of attacks by members of the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram, whose deadly incursions have practically leached the meager economic fabric of this part of Cameroon. Trade between Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad have been systematically crumbled with the Lake Chad Basin heavily affected.
The North West and South West regions of the country have been plunged into violence, following the corporatist demands of English-speaking lawyers and teachers. These mood movements then degenerated into independent demands from 2017, turning these two English-speaking regions of Cameroon into a theater of clashes between the regular army and separatist militants.
According to the figures published at the beginning of the year by the Cameroon Employers cartel (Gicam), the crisis in the English-speaking part of the country has led to the destruction of about twenty companies representing the loss of more than 269 billion francs CFA (approximately $ 450 million).
Companies like the CDC and PAMOL are operating below their usual capacity as workers have been killed and others taken refuge in other parts of the country. Recurrent ghost towns have crippled SME’s forcing entrepreneurs to establish in Douala and Yaounde.
NEWSDAY CAMEROON 