Improving Business Climate : Going Beyond Years of Speechifying

If the creation of institutions alone could mean effective change, then potential businesses wishing to install in Cameroon and those already operating therein would have heaved a heavy sigh of relief a long time ago. The cry is in every lip, in the streets, among investors, and even within government circles; the business environment is not appropriate enough to attract investors both local and external. The government which holds the supervisory key has created institutional frameworks,  formulated reforms, and organized forums, yet the situation remains mitigated. Like many Cameroonians, this has been the worry of the Head of State, President Paul Biya, as can be discerned from his numerous speeches. The Council of Ministers' Meeting of last January, 16, was yet another occasion for him to revisit this thorny issue of business environment. According to the statement issued by the Minister of State, Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the President "urged the government to make the necessary efforts to better welcome investors to our country and grant them the appropriate facilities."

The real issue here is whether or not it is the umpteenth time the President is hammering on this issue but how best to put an end to this reminder. President Biya in his inauguration speech before the people's representatives, qualified this seven-year mandate as that of "Great Opportunities." Stakeholders in the investment sector are expected to consider cleansing the investment environment as one of such great opportunities. The question is surely how possible can this happen after over a decade of trials and failures. As the saying goes, there must be an end to everything that had a beginning. There is only one thing that has no beginning and no end; the Almighty God. The President has opened up the valve for rhetoric to be flushed out. This entails going beyond speech making. One no longer needs to be reminded of the creation of structures such as: the Inter-ministerial Committee Extended to the Private Sector (ICEPS), the Cameroon Business Forum (CBF), the Cameroon Investment Promotion Agency (CIPA) etc. but to understand how far decisions and recommendations taken within the framework these structures will be applied.

In effect, the road to an improved business climate might not be as rough as one would imagine. Some schools of thought think the roughness of the road is being determined by stakehold...