A new management team has been put at the helm of the Cameroon Airlines Corporation Camair_co.
Jean Christophe Ela Nguema was appointed on January 07 2021 during an extraordinary meeting of Board of Directors.
He is assisted by Alexandre Fochive, and Mauger Ayem is the new president of Board of Directors.
Christophe Ela comes in to replace Loius Georges Njipendi Kouotou, who has served the corporation since May 27th 2019.
No reason has been given for the replacement of Louis Georges Njipendi and his team, but it is evident that it is as a result of financial, managerial and structural crisis.
The corporation has been facing financial crisis under the reign of Njipendi Kouotou, and the consequences are visible.
371 employees were sent on technical leave when the covid-19 pandemic started.
According to the then Manager ( Louis Georges) this approach was to help the crisis unit of the corporation to manage and prepare the company for an optimal resumption, after the health crisis.
The company rather decided to layoff 130 worker last December.
Information from Internal company sources indicate that since April 2020, salaries had not been paid.
In addition to salary arrears, Camair_Co has a debt of more than FCFA300 million.
The company explains that in 2019, it experienced disruptions due to the failure of some of its technical tools, which led to its financial crisis. Half of its fleets were grounded.
Two weeks ago, social security minister Gregoire Owona was in Douala to resolve a crisis, when union leaders were at knife’s edge with Camair_co officials on the retrenchment of social security rights.
Worth noting is that management at camair_co has not been the best with its previous administrators.
For some years now, Camair_co has paid huge sums of money to 14 foreign pilots, causing the company’s to lose close to FCFA 334 million. While foreign pilots earn close to FCFA 5.3million, Cameroonians captains earn FCFA 2.5million.
A good number of contracts signed by some former Camair_co managers were fictitious. These also included those related to the hiring of aircrafts and pilots.
It is then believed that this newly appointed team will bring a wind of change in the corporation.
Jean Christophe Ela Nguema comes in as the 8th General Manager of Camair_co since its creation in 2008.