Reacting to COFINEST’s downfall, some finance experts have started yelling out for reforms. In an interview granted Cameroon Tribune, Dr Justin Bomda, an expert in microfinance, has emphasised on the need for reforms to overhaul the microfinance sector. Internally, he suggested greater professionalism on the part of personnel and more efficiency in control and supervision on the part of the Central African Banking Commission, COBAC and the Ministry of Finance. To ensure greater performance of the sector and security of the funds it manages, the expert suggested reforms such as the implementation of a more simplified recovery procedure, the incorporation of the microfinance sector into the central loan risk detection system and the recently created deposit guarantee fund for banks. He also suggested the reduction of fiscal pressure on microfinance institutions imposed by government’s 2011 finance law.
On his part, Célestin Nkou Nkou, another expert in banking and microfinance, in an interview granted an online media, attributed the fall of COFINEST to its management style characterised by looseness, lack of transparency and grant of loans in breach of regulations and prudential norms. This event and similar ones, he said, illustrate the necessity for COBAC to put in place a rigourous proximity control mechanism requiring the services of trained inspectors whose role will be to ensure banks’ compliance to the law, loan risks, policies, delegation of power, administrative practices and decisions, internal controls and operations off balance sheets. In so doing, he affirmed, inspectors will take clients off the claws and abuse of certain indelicate institutions which practise over-billing of financial costs, usury loan interests or which operate clandestinely.
The microfinance sector has become a great lever of Cameroon’s socio-economic development. According to COBAC’s 2008 figures the sector counts over 1,5 million clients and hosts at least 1,075,000 accounts compared to the banking sector’s 999,069 accounts.
