MINEFOP Wraps Up Visit

The Minister of Employment and Vocational Training, Issa Tchiroma wraps up his visit to the littoral region with stops at the Biopharma, Doual’Air, Alpicam and Intelcia enterprises. On the third day of the working visit yesterday, the Minister visited Sogea Satom and Medcem enterprises. On each lap of his visit, Issa Tchiroma reiterated his call on the private sector to help government achieve the objective of creating 500.000 jobs this year by recruiting more Cameroonians. He reminded them that his role as minister of employment, is to create and protect jobs as well as see into it that foreigners are not recruited to do what a Cameroonian can do. He reaffirmed his readiness to intercede on the behalf of the companies with the other concerned ministerial departments to make sure they ease things for the companies so as to enable them recruit more Cameroonians. He said there are over a million graduates in Cameroon but they are not professionals, hence the need for companies to contribute in professional training.
At Sogea Satom, the administrative and financial director representing the general manager of the company said, Sogea Satom recruits some 2300 people and will be increasing the number to about 2700 or 2800 by the end of the year. He disclosed that the company signed a convention with the National Employment Fund, FNE, which led to the instauration of a national day of recruitment in Douala and Yaounde during which some 300 people were recruited from among the over 2000 who took part in the job fair. They also carry out trainings for staff and partners with the Douala Advanced School of Vocational Training, CFPE. He assured the Minister that Sogea Satom stands by the side of countries whether in political crisis or economic difficulty and never quits.
At Medcem like Sogea Satom before, the Minister was taken on a guided tour round the facilities of the factory before settling down for a working session during which they expressed the wish to see the five per cent discount on taxes implemented and prices of imported material homologated so as to avoid being penalized for price reduction by the custom department. The Turkish company specialized in producing high quality cement recruits some 200 people directly and over 60 indirectly. The General Manager, Harkan Tatlisu said of the 65 experts who came to Cameroon to implant the company in 2016, only five are still in Cameroon after transferring the technical knowhow to Cameroonians. He said Cameroon remains a land of opportunities and that Turkish companies will continue investing in the country.