The Government has recently taken some very important decisions that aim at giving the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) a new lease of life. The measures fall within the framework of the ongoing restructuring of the Corporation.
The financial crisis which gripped the Corporation when commodity prices, in our case rubber, took a serious nose-dive after the boom of the years 2010 and 2011 prompted the Government by Decision No 020/SG/PM of 31st March 2015 to set up an inter-ministerial working group to study modalities for the restructuring of the CDC.
Three axes were identified viz: institutional, financial and technical. The institutional domain aims at providing an adequate framework for the Corporation to operate by putting it in conformity with current legislation (national and international). The technical domain envisages the implementation of the Corporation’s Strategic Development Plan (2014-2022) which encompasses various actions geared towards the rejuvenation of plantations, refurbishing of oil mills and factories, procurement of road maintenance equipment and crop evacuation vehicles in order to improve on productivity and competitiveness.
On its part, the financial domain aims at improving the financial situation of the CDC so as to enable investments that the technical restructuring entails. In this connection, the series of decisions taken by the Minister of Finance were presented to the General Assembly sitting in for an Extra-Ordinary session on July 5, 2018 for approval and subsequent implementation.
Thus, by resolution No 059/CDC/GA/2018 of 5th July 2018, “the General Assembly AUTHORIZED the General Manager to effect the recording of the Ministerial Decisions into the Accounting records of the CDC under the 2018 financial year as follows:
i) The reclassification of the dividend of 3 Billion FCFA due to the State to retained earnings and the debt taken out of the books of the CDC;
ii) The waiver of CDC’s fiscal debt of 39.645 billion FCFA and the conversion of CDC’s uncontested fiscal debts of 17,784,629,278 FCFA to share capital which will lead to an increase from 35,718,550,806 FCFA to 53,503,180,084 FCFA; The cancellation of the contested fiscal debts of 14,538,339,593 FCFA;
iii) The re-purchase of the consolidated loan of 30.197 Billion FCFA at a surrender price of 1.756 Billion FCFA”.
The above reduces the Corporation’s indebtedness by 71 Billion FCFA and considerably cleans up the Balance Sheet. This will go a long way to improve on the operating margin of the Corporation and make the CDC eligible for suitable financing for the necessary investments both from local banks and international financial institutions.