(Business in Cameroon) - Since 9 June 2017, Didier Vandenbon is no more the Managing Director of Cameroon Railways (Camrail), a company owned by the Bolloré group, holding the concession for the Cameroonian railway. At the end of a Board meeting held that day, he was replaced by Jean Pierre Morel.

This French manager will be assisted by two deputy managing directors. They are Cameroonian Michel Ossok, former Human Resources Director at Camrail, and Gilbert Kana Pondi, a retired civil engineer, who was once Technical Coordinator of Railway Operations at the Ministry of Transport.

Chairman of the Camrail Board since 2009, replacing Michel Roussin, the Cameroonian member of parliament Hamadou Sali was also replaced by Aboubakar Abbo, also a Cameroonian national. The new Chairman of Camrail is a former cadre from the Prime Minister’s office, who became during the last local election Mayor of Belel, in the Adamawa region.

According to our sources, this new configuration of positions within the institutions of Camrail (senior management and Board), with almost 50-50 for the two main shareholders of the company (State of Cameroon and Bolloré group), is simply in line with the Cameroonian State’s aim to be better represented in the decision-making bodies of this company.

Indeed, in the communiqué from the General Secretary of the Office of the President of the Republic dated 23 May 2017, revealing the conclusions of the investigation initiated after the railway catastrophe which occurred on 21 October 2016 in Eséka, the President of the Republic ordered “that discussions be opened between the partners within Camrail, for the State to have more representation in said company...”

It is based on this presidential order that, we learned from sources close to the case, the Cameroonian State requested that the positions of Chairman of the Board and Deputy Managing Director be handed over. Hence the entry of Aboubakar Abbo as Chairman and the creation of two deputy MD positions, with one now held by Gilbert Kana Pondi, the 2^nd State representative within the top management of the railway company.

Brice R. Mbodiam