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Abakal Mahamat: “The actions of the Central Bank, coupled with the intervention of the State have been of crucial importance…”

Abakal Mahamat: “The actions of the Central Bank, coupled with the intervention of the State have been of crucial importance…”
  • Comments   -   Thursday, 17 September 2020 16:37

(Business in Cameroon) - Based on BGFI Cameroon’s experience, the bank’s managing director talks about the impact of the Coronavirus on the local financial sector and appreciates measures taken by the government and the Central Bank to mitigate it.

Hello Mr. CEO, Could you tell us how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected your operations?

Abakal Mahamat: This pandemic took everyone by surprise. We are in the financial services industry, and our operations were paralyzed, just as those of many clients were interrupted, requiring a rapid readjustment of our business model. Indeed, the public and private sectors, as well as the informal sector, have been strongly impacted by the pandemic. And banks have also been affected, with an increased need to support our clients during this difficult period.

Nevertheless, like any crisis and despite its adverse effects, the Covid-19 pandemic has been full of lessons that will surely enable us to be more resilient and to anticipate such occurrences - which we of course do not wish to see happen again.

Before we get to the lessons learned, let’s talk about the Central Bank, which has intervened and continues to intervene in some way to breathe life into your sector. The government of Cameroon has also taken measures, have these interventions had the impact of diluting the negative effects you mentioned?

Abakal Mahamat: There has been a certain effect from all these entities. Recently, the Central Bank announced that it would buy back 600 billion treasury bonds from CEMAC countries, which is a huge breath of fresh air for the states concerned and the banks in terms of cash flow. It has also issued a series of instructions and press releases aimed at enabling commercial banks to become stabilized.

We can therefore affirm that thanks to these timely interventions relating in particular to the repurchase of bonds and bills issued by the CEMAC national treasuries, on one hand, the easing of certain controls on the activity of banks and the injections of liquidity for the benefit of the economies of the sub-region on the other hand, we are beginning to see the end of the tunnel.

As far as the government is concerned, the impact has been felt more through the businesses that are our clients. In this sense, we welcome the efforts made by the State in the fiscal area, to enable them to deploy more easily, and for some organizations, to emerge from the agony. To sum up, the actions of the Central Bank coupled with the intervention of the State have been of crucial importance and allow us to foresee better prospects for the future.

In the same vein, which customer categories do you think are feeling the effects of the recovery the most?

Abakal Mahamat: Individuals and businesses are feeling it to varying degrees, with the latter feeling it much more significantly. Indeed, companies represent value chains that can combine several types of impacts at the same time. Take the case of large companies, for instance, they have subcontractors who themselves have their suppliers of goods or services. It is, therefore, this entire value chain that is impacted, with induced effects on the people employed by these companies and on the social fabric as a whole.

All the major banks in the world and Africa, including the BGFI group of which you are the CEO of its Cameroonian subsidiary, are beginning to learn the lessons of this pandemic. At your level, what lessons are you beginning to draw from Covid-19?

Abakal Mahamat: For a banking group like ours, present in 11 countries, with a marked presence in Paris, France, where the effects of the pandemic were among the most pronounced, we had to reinvent ourselves to preserve our quality of service, our privileged relationships with our clients, and our contribution to the growth of the economy, all this of course in strict compliance with the measures set up by the government.

Our reorganization was thus carried out in several ways. In terms of working methods, we opted for videoconferencing instead of face-to-face meetings. We have continued with the governance of the group and hold all the related committees. The way we manage our clients has also evolved. Until now, we have had a very personalized approach to managing clients, who we would meet with at their sites to hear about them and their activities. This relationship continues, but through the tools that technology offers us.

In addition to the reorganization of working methods, we had to revise our budget forecasts because of the impact of the pandemic on the economy. In this sense, Covid-19 appeared to us as an opportunity to test our governance system and our ability to manage crises, and we note with great satisfaction that our organization is resisting the shock well, both at the Group and subsidiary level. With regards to personnel, in addition to protection and distancing measures, we set up a system of material and psychological support for employees whose family members were affected, to enable them to continue working under good conditions. I would thus say that we have reinvented the way we manage our human capital.

If you had a suggestion or a request to make to the authorities, what would it be?

Abakal Mahamat: The authorities have implemented various measures to contain this pandemic. What we can suggest to them is to maintain all the actions already taken to help companies in difficulty because of Covid-19, and to continue with the various actions aimed at supporting the economy, particularly in terms of tax pressure. This way, the financial services companies that we are will be better able to make our contribution to a full recovery of the economy.

Interview by Idriss Linge

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