(Business in Cameroon) - Liquidation procedures were recently launched for Terminal Polyvalent de Kribi (TPK), the company created in 2013 by French logistics firm Necotrans and Cameroonian consortium KPMO (Kribi Port Multi Operators) for the management of the Kribi deep seaport’s multipurpose terminal. 

In an announcement published on October 4, 2021, Mouctar Hamadam, chairman of TPK’s administrative board, informs that a combined shareholders meeting recently discussed the appointment of a liquidator following the voluntary dissolution of the said company.  

A panel of liquidators was thus appointed. It consists of Mouctar Hamadama (representing TPK), Gabriel Manimben (representing KPMO), and Gaston Ngamkan, a lawyer at the Cameroonian bar.  

The panel will carry out the various actions required for the liquidation of TPK and return the capital to its shareholders, we learn. 

With a XAF200 million capital, TPK was 51% owned by Necotrans and 49% by KPMO. It was unable to survive the various problems that occurred during its lifetime. In 2014, French logistics company Necotrans was chosen for the management of the multipurpose terminal. However, in January 2018, Cameroonian authorities deeming it defective withdrew the contract and awarded it, in 2020, to Filipino group ICTSI. 

During the transition period (between 2018 and 2020), KPMO was chosen by port authorities to ensure the delegated management of that terminal. That contract ended in 2020. 

Even TPK’s shareholders were not united. In a letter sent to Cameroonian authorities in late 2016, KPMO reported its partner Necotrans’ shady actions to assume overall control over the multipurpose terminal. The French company was accused of having initiated private negotiations with some members of KPMO in order to dismantle the consortium and gain increased management rights over the multi-purpose terminal. To ease tensions, the two parties appointed Cameroonian businessman Mouctar Hamadama as chairman of TPK's board of directors.

Sylvain Andzongo