The Cameroonian economic fabric is suffering atrociously from the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic, and the situation is unraveling every day a little more. According to a situation report produced by the Groupement Inter-patronal du Cameroun (GICAM), and presented on Thursday, July 23, 2020 by the president of the institution, Célestin Tawamba, to economic operators at its headquarters in Douala.
This second assessment, after the one carried out in April 2020, shows that the situation has deteriorated further, despite the response organized by the various actors.
“From 92.5% in April, the proportion of companies negatively affected by the crisis rose to 96.6% at the end of June 2020. In addition, the negative effects of the crisis worsened for 61.5% of companies,” GICAM reveals.
According to this survey, which covers the period May / June 2020, this situation will lead to a decrease in the turnover of companies over the year, of the order of 81.7%. “In absolute value, the loss of annual turnover could reach 3 139 billion FCFA compared to 2019 for companies in the modern sector and induce a decrease in their capacity to contribute to State revenues of around 521 billion FCFA ”, we learnt.
Because of the pandemic, jobs have become unstable, and very threatened. According to GICAM, 42.6% of companies put their employees on technical layoff, while 12.4% simply dismissed their staff. Things are expected to get even more complicated in the coming months. “Overall, 53,346 permanent employees were already on technical unemployment at the end of June 2020 and 13,834 permanent employees were already made redundant”, specifies the GICAM note.
The employers remain thirsty, however, and indicate that the accompanying measures taken by the public authorities to support businesses are not satisfactory. 69% of business leaders believe this support is insufficient.
