The Cameroon Dispatch

The  Pan African financial institution, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has announced its audited half year financial results ended June 30, 2017 , showing remarkable performance across major metrics. UBA grew its gross earnings for the period by 34.5 percent to USD0.73 billion, as against USD0.54 billion reported in June 2016. This impressive performance, which reflects the strong momentum of UBA’s business and its increasing share of customers’ wallet, was driven by the 44.3 per cent and 16.0 per cent growth in interest income and non-funded income respectively. The Group’s operating income stood at USD0.53 billion, compared to USD0.38 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2016, representing a 39.2 percent growth.  Notwithstanding the impact of Naira devaluation and double digit inflation in Nigeria and a number of other African countries where UBA operates, the Group managed through its cost lines to deliver a sterling Profit Before tax (PBT) of USD18...

The United Bank for Africa, Wednesday August 2, launched its latest banking innovation service, UBA Connect for its  branches  in the CEMAC region. The service gives UBA customers the ability and convenience to instantly access their accounts in banking halls of branches anywhere within the region. This entails withdrawing cash over the counter with the use of checks and making cash deposits. The bank’s customers in the CEMAC region are the first to experience the innovation. Going by the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of  UBA Cameroon,  Isong Udom, it is much easier for the system to work in the region because the countries use the same currency. He also said they chose to launch the product in Cameroon because the country is the economic hub of the sub-region. “Businessmen traveling within the region no longer have to worry about the cost and safety of moving around with large amounts of liquid cash on them” he said. Ikye Idukpaye, who came all ...

Mozilla-backed research reveals main barriers to internet access in African countries Compelling Mozilla-backed research ( www.Mozilla.org ), carried out by Research ICT Africa, finds that significant barriers to internet access remains in four African countries – Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. The research aims to understand, from a comparative perspective, how the citizens use the internet when data is subsidised and when it is not. Knowing that affordability is one of the primary barriers to Internet access and particular optimal use, the main objective of the focus groups was to obtain qualitative information that reflects the perceptions of female and male Internet users, new users, and non-Internet users from urban and rural locations about how people use the Internet. A 2016 International Telecommunications Union report  ( http://APO.af/KAylqd ) estimates that only about 25 percent of the population of Africa has access to the internet. Results of the resea...

Since the discovery on 2 June 2017 of the corpse of Bishop Jean-Marie Benoît Bala of Bafia, and especially after the solemn announcement of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC) through the voice of its President, Mgr. Samuel Kleda, on 13 June, for whom "Bishop Jean-Marie-Benoît Bala did not commit suicide, he was brutally assassinated",  Cameroonians are embarrassed. It is not unnecessary, beyond all technical considerations of forensic expertise, to recall that all Cameroonians saw Msgr. Kleda and other senior religious leaders along the bank of the Sanaga at the time of lifting the body of the Bishop of Bafia out of water. Thus, when he publicly evoked the brutality with which Bishop Jean-Benoît BALA was assassinated , one is inclined to believe that it is on the basis of observations, even "basic", that he and all those who were in direct contact with the remains of the unfortunate Bishop made. CRM does not wish to interfere with invest...

The US and the United Kingdom have been very reticent following the on-going socio-political quagmire in the two Anglophone regions of Cameroon since November 21, 2016 after lawyers and teachers embarked on an indefinite strike to protest against marginalisation. Since then, courts and schools have been grounded as the crisis took a different twist plunging that part of the country into upheavals. The Cameroon government decided to cut internet services in the North West and South West which was only re-established after several months. Faced with this imbroglio, the government has been adamant to open meaningful dialogue with the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society led by Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor Balla, Dr Fontem A. Neba and Mancho Bibixy incarcerated by the Yaoundé regime for close to seven months now. Britain, the former colonial master of Southern Cameroons has till date not made any official statement vis-à-vis the stalemate in Anglophone Cameroon. Desp...

Things Are Falling in Place (a response to Barrister Akere Muna’s “Things Fall Apart”) Sincere thanks to Barrister Akere Muna for his “Things Fall Apart” article on the s. It provides not only great reading, but it reminds us all that many peace-loving citizens continue to think through and offer (at least for public debate) what they consider possible solutions. Kindly allow me to comment on some aspects and highlight what I consider shortcomings in your approach: First, your diagnosis is to the effect that things are falling apart in the s. You cite a litany of divisions, indirectly insinuating that these divisions stem from the ongoing crisis. Not true! Long before the current crisis, we were a divided people. We have always been a divided people.  The so-called “United Republic” under Ahidjo-Foncha-Biya-Muna has never existed. Not anymore than you accurately indicated that there is no “one, and indivisible” . To be clear, our colonizers did not start calling ...