(Business in Cameroon) - In its recently published 2018 business review, Cameroonian utility company Eneo announced a XAF8 billion loss on sales due to the sociopolitical crisis ongoing, for three years now, in the Anglophone region.

The company controlled by British investment fund Actis thus joins the list of companies affected by violent pro-independent claims in the Northwestern and Southwestern regions since late 2016.

The most affected of these companies is Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), the second-largest employer in the country after the public service. CDC, which disappeared from the country’s banana exporters’ registry since September 2018, officially recorded a XAF32 billion loss on its banana segment in 2018. Due to insecurity created by the anglophone separatists in its farms, CDC’s oil palm and rubber farms are not operating at their full capacity. Indeed, the separatists don't hesitate to cut off the fingers of workers brazen enough to go to the plantations.

One of the sectors most affected by the anglophone crisis is the cocoa sector. Indeed, the Southwestern region lost its leadership in terms of production because producers, fleeing the violence, have abandoned their farms. At the same time, many cocoa dealers previously in the region delocalized their operations.

In the telecom sector, apart from destroying equipment, for three years now, the pro-independents have been jeopardizing MTN Cameroon’s 60% market share in the Anglophone region. In the cement sector, Dangote Cement Cameroon announced a 7.1% drop in its sales in H1, 2019 because of the troubling situation in the two regions.

Brice R. Mbodiam