Public enterprises should borrow a leaf from CAMTEL.

State companies like the CDC, SONARA, Cameroon Airlines transformed to CAMAIR-Co, to name but a few, are struggling with weak financial performance, heavy debt burdens, and high operational costs.

There is, however, a shining star in the dark climate to prove that strengthening governance ensures transparency, accountability, and competent leadership, ultimately improving the contribution of public enterprises to the national budget and economic development.

The Cameroon Telecommunications, CAMTEL, is the star. 

As The Guardian Post reported yesterday, a ranking of State-owned enterprises, based on their performances between the period 2022 to 2024 fiscal years, released by the Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motaze, on August 13, 2026, puts CAMTEL at the apex.

The recognition from the State has been described by commentators as fruits of the “revolutionary structural transformation, embarked on by the results-driven General Manager of CAMTEL, Yah Judith Sunday epse Achidi”. 

Minister Motaze explained that the ranking was based on the corporation’s strong financial performances within the period under review.

The recent classification, observers say, comes to confirm CAMTEL’s upward turn of fortunes, since 2018, when the Head of State, President Paul Biya, handed the company’s management to Yah Judith Sunday epse Achidi.

Since then, the “Change Management and Customer Centricity” vision of the CAMTEL General Manager, has been the mantra which she has relied upon to produce a wide range of positive results in record time.

From a revenue of 108 billion FCFA in 2018, CAMTEL has more than doubled its revenue to 217billion FCFA in 2024. It surpassed 235 billion FCFA in 2025.

The records led to a net profit, exceeding 13 billion FCFA, for the first time in the company’s history in 2025. The financial gains have been achieved and consolidated, thanks to the rigorous policy of Yah Achidi Judith Sunday; aimed at harnessing and securing the company’s finances through the digitalisation of payment methods.

The company has also embarked on a vast project to upgrade and boost its fibre optic network, through the deployment of additional 3,000 kilometres of fibre across the country.

The mobile segment is equally receiving a huge boost, through CAMTEL’s Mobile Network Expansion Project, which is upgrading and expanding its mobile coverage in several towns and rural areas across the country.

Aware of the fact that positive results can only come from a dynamic staff strength, she embarked on a mission in 2024, to refresh the company’s human resources by emplying over 700 young Cameroonians with various competences to boost services.

With Yah Judith Sunday epse Achidi overseeing a heavy investment in infrastructure and human resources, observers say CAMTEL is now poised to break the ceiling.

The Guardian Post congratulates Yah Judith Sunday epse Achidi, for her scintillating performance. 

The question is why are other State corporations still banking on subventions and owing salaries of workers, while drowning in debts even after the Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motaze, had instituted performance contracts providing a timetable according to which from January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2024, all companies and institutions in the State portfolio should produce positive results?

Why have the General Managers of the money-guzzling State enterprises not been fired? Why do many still serve more than the nine year limits, and those underperforming still being kept on the job?

Several studies have indicated that Cameroon's State-owned enterprises “often collapse due to deep-rooted governance flaws, including weak internal controls, excessive political interference, and prolonged management tenures that bypass legal term limits”.

Many accumulate massive public debt and rely heavily on State bailouts because they lack commercial accountability and transparent financial tracking.

They are involved in conflict of interest by occasionally breaking rules and awarding State contracts to businesses they control and excessive administrative and operational spending that drain resources that should go toward productive investments.

Those are flaws that have repeatedly been diagnosed as causes of public companies not performing. They can and should be eliminated by sacking General Managers of such failing firms so that the State can earn dividends for socioeconomic development; like is the case with CAMTEL.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3884 of Thursday August 20, 2026