By RFIPosted on 10-25-2019Modified on 25-10-2019 at 00:05

The container terminal of the port of Douala is the subject of a fierce battle between the Bolloré group and the new designated concessionaire, the operator TIL. A document in circulation since Thursday and emanating from the presidency instructed the suspension of the process of this new concession which was to come into effect from January 2020.

The letter signed on October 23 and marked with the seal "confidential" but which was quickly circulating on social networks has the effect of a bomb.

In this, Ferdinand Nbog Ngoh, minister general secretary of the presidency who said from the outset that he acts on the orders of the President of the Republic, instructed the director general of the port to " suspend the work of finalizing the terms of the contract of concession with Terminal Investment Limited, TIL ". This on the grounds, he continues, to await " the final conclusions of the case between the APMT / Bolloré grouping in the port of Douala, pending case Littoral Administrative Court in Douala. "

Clearly, the process that should have known the departure of the Bolloré group of this port platform and which was in its final phase has just suffered a stinging stop. TIL, if it is not definitively excluded, will have to wait and the Bolloré group can once again cherish the dream of maintaining itself as a concessionaire of this container terminal that it has been managing for 15 years.

The Bolloré group, considering itself fooled in the conduct of the new call for tenders, had launched a dual litigation procedure at the Paris International Court of Commerce and the Administrative Court of Douala. The group has also, according to several sources, operated political levers by seeking the arbitration of President Paul Biya in person.

And for many observers, the concomitance between the presence in the last 48 hours of Jean-Yves Le Drian in Cameroon , come "revive" the cooperation between Paris and Yaounde, and this suspension on the wire and revive the whole process, n is not trivial.

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