GeCAM expresses worries over worsening electricity crisis.

The President of GeCAM President, Célestin Tawamba, made the distress call on behalf of the Board on Thursday, September 10.

He was speaking during the second edition of the Employers’ Economic Review. The gathering was to present GeCAM’s assessment of the national economy and its expectations ahead of the 2027 Finance Law. 

Tawamba said the energy crisis remains one of the most serious obstacles to Cameroon’s economic transformation. 

He regretted that despite reforms and major investments announced by authorities in the energy sector, “the energy crisis is getting worse”.

“…sometimes ago, the minister was here, he assured us of changes but yet nothing as such has been done" he said.

According to the GeCAM president, the daily reality for businesses is that electricity is “scarce, expensive, unreliable and too often inaccessible”.

He cited World Bank Enterprise Survey data indicating that 65 percent of Cameroonian businesses rely on generators to keep their operations running.

The cost of self-generation, he noted, ranges between 200 and 350 FCFA per kilowatt-hour, compared with an industrial electricity tariff of between 50 and 99 FCFA.

“In other words, generating one’s own electricity costs between two and seven times more than the energy supplied by SOCADEL,” Tawamba said. 

Nachtigal capacity not enough

While acknowledging the commissioning of the Nachtigal dam, which has added 420 MW to the country’s installed generation capacity, Tawamba said generation alone cannot solve the problem.

“Installed capacity is only of value if it is transmitted, distributed and utilised,” he stressed, arguing that electricity being generated is still failing to reach factories, workshops and industrial estates.

He also raised concerns over the financial implications of the “take-or-pay” mechanism, which he said imposes an estimated 10 billion FCFA monthly cost on the State for the benefit of NHPC.

Tawamba said GeCAM is calling for the effective connection of industrial estates to existing electricity capacity and the publication of a clear timetable for reducing the sector’s deficit. 

Investment falling as taxes rise

Away from the electricity crisis, the employers’ organisation expressed concern over what it described as a widening gap between government revenue collection and productive investment.

Tawamba revealed that government investment expenditure stood at only 45 billion FCFA at the end of March 2026, compared with 175.5 billion FCFA during the same period the previous year.

This, he said, represents a 74.4 percent decline, while the execution rate for investment appropriations fell to just 2.2 percent.

At the same time, the tax authorities revenue target, he disclosed, increased from 3,200 billion FFCFA in 2025 to FCFA 3,600 billion in 2026, a 12.5 percent rise in an economy growing at around 3.5 percent.

GeCAM also pointed to rising public debt, which stood at FCFA 15,607 billion by the end of June 2026, representing 44.2 percent of GDP.

Debt servicing, according to Tawamba, accounts for nearly 40 percent of expenditure, while public investment accounts for only 23 percent. 

The employers’ organisation has consequently made one major demand ahead of the 2027 Finance Law notable that, operating expenditure should grow more slowly than investment expenditure. GeCAM said such a shift would allow more public resources to go into infrastructure and productive sectors.

Roads adding to cost of doing business

The deteriorating state of major transport corridors also came under scrutiny Although the 2026 Finance Law allocated FCFA 660.4 billion for major first-generation projects and new projects, GeCAM says several key economic routes continue to deteriorate.

Among them are the Douala-Bafoussam, Douala-Yaoundé, Edéa-Kribi and Ngaoundéré-Kousseri corridors. Tawamba said transport costs increased by 11.5 percent in 2023 and another 12.3 percent in 2024. 

Disruptions on the Douala-Ngaoundéré railway corridor are also estimated to add between 15 and 20 percent to logistics costs for goods destined for northern Cameroon, Chad and the Central African Republic.

“A dilapidated road is a tax,” Tawamba declared, explaining that businesses pay it through increased fuel consumption, damaged tyres and idle trucks, costs which are eventually transferred to consumers. 

GECAM seeks tax stability

On taxation, GeCAM called for an overhaul of the General Tax Code, which Tawamba said has been amended more than 2,500 times since its last structural overhaul in 2002.

He said the 2026 Finance Act alone amended 127 articles, compared with 57 the previous year, while more than 40 new charges and levies were introduced under the responsibility of about 15 ministries.

He said the constant changes create uncertainty in businesses, increase compliance costs and discourage investment. 

GeCAM Executive Director, Aline Valérie Mbono, in a separate interview, reinforced the call, underscoring the need to move from indecision to implementation, reversing the investment-versus-operating expenditure trend in the 2027 Finance Law, and revising the General Tax Code.

She said businesses need a period of fiscal stability rather than a succession of new measures that force companies to constantly adjust their operations. “The cost of uncertainty is clearly the lack of investment,” Mbono said.

Credit squeeze hits businesses

GeCAM also raised concern over access to finance, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.

According to Tawamba, banks granted FCFA 1,337 billion in new loans during the first quarter of 2026, down from FCFA 1,887 billion a year earlier. 

This, he said, represents a decline of nearly FCFA 550 billion, even as the number of loan applications increased. At the same time, the average lending rate rose from 8.26 percent to 9.03 percent.

GeCAM said the situation is further complicated by the State’s growing role in the banking sector, with the government simultaneously becoming a shareholder in banks, a major borrower and a debtor to companies.

Tawamba also used the occasion to advocate stronger economic patriotism and greater protection of domestic productive capacity.

He warned that uncontrolled market liberalisation and competition from imported goods risk weakening industries built over decades by Cameroonian entrepreneurs.

GeCAM wants “Made in Cameroon” to move beyond a slogan, with the State adopting a clear industrial policy capable of strengthening local production.

The concern comes as Cameroon’s trade deficit reached FCFA 2,145 billion in 2025, up from FCFA 1,747 billion the previous year.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3909 of Monday September 14, 2026