(Business in Cameroon) - Internationally renowned cocoa expert Hope Sona Ebai is, since May 27, 2021, the chairman of the executive board of state-owned agribusiness company Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC). He was officially inaugurated the same day by Minister of Agriculture Gabriel Mbairobe.

The new executive replaces former Justice Minister Benjamin Itoé, who was appointed on August 1, 2014. Hope Sona Ebai joined CDC on May 19, 2021, as a “personality designated by the President of the Republic.”

Barely fifteen days later, he is landing a role as head of CDC’s executive board at a time when the company is still recovering from the impacts of the Anglophone crisis - ongoing since 2016 in the two Anglophone regions - on the company’s operations. The agribusiness company, which specializes in banana, oil palm, and rubber production, was forced to stop exploiting some of its plantations (banana plantations notably) in September 2018, because they were taken over by armed separatists who used them as training grounds.

Since June 2020, when CDC made its comeback in the banana segment, it is yet to find its momentum. Its average monthly banana production is still below 2,000 tons against an average of 9,000 tons before 2016.

"I believe that with the board members who have been with the company for a while now and know the problems and solutions we can deploy, we will put CDC back on the track it was before,” the new chairman commented.

BRM