-Pundits say the coming of the new board chair with over three decades experience in agro-business might help revive the ailing state corporation
Barely a week after his appointment by a presidential decree to the executive board of the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, Hope Sona Ebai has been elected as new board chairman of the ailing state corporation.
He was elected during an extraordinary board meeting which held in Yaounde Thursday 27 May 2021. The meeting was chaired by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gabriel Mbairobe. The former Managing Director of the National Cocoa and Coffee Council, ONCC replaces Justice Benjamin Mutanga Itoe who had already served his statutory mandate as per the OHADA Uniform Act and also based on the fact that he is a member of the National Commission on the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism.
The election of the international expert in cocoa/coffee sector in particular and agri-business sector in general with over three decades experience has been hailed by many who see him as key to reviving the corporation and bring a new lease of life. He has over 30 years of cumulated experience in the national, African, and global cocoa economy.
He put in 11 years as General Secretary of the association of Cocoa Producing Countries (COPAL) that accounts for 75% of the global cocoa production. He coordinated the organization of the summits of African cocoa producers’ Heads of State in Abuja (Nigeria) in 2006 and Accra (Ghana) in 2007 and is also credited for convening four international conferences on researches in the cocoa industry.
After COPAL, Hope Sona Ebai landed at the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), an organization financed by important partners like American billionaire Bill Gates, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As a member of that organization whose membership includes the 100 largest companies in the global cocoa industry, the agricultural economics graduate (from Ohio State University) steered the African Cocoa Initiative (ACI). The international expert now has the huge challenge to revive the CDC, hard hit by the ongoing armed conflict rocking the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon.
The coming of the new board chairman has automatically put an end to the ugly power tussle that dragged on between his predecessor and the current General Manager, Franklin Ngoni Njie.
By Doh Bertrand Nua
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