The Director General of the Cameroon Oil Transportation Company (COTCO), Harouna Bako, has been appointed as the new Director General of the national oil refinery corporation, SONARA.
News of his appointment was unveiled during the extraordinary Board of Directors meeting of SONARA held this Friday, February 9, in Limbe, South West Region.
Gaston Eloundou Essomba, the Minister of Water and Energy Resources, carried out his installation alongside the South West Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai and other officials.
He replaces Jean-Paul Simo Njonou, who has headed SONARA since January 14, 2019.
In his installation speech, Minister Gaston Eloundou indicated that “the responsibility of this structure is great in the process that must lead our country towards emergence by 2035.”
The appointment, he continued, “comes in a context where, the President of the Republic, His Excellency Paul Biya, has instructed the government to do everything possible to accelerate the process of reconstruction of this important society, which is the guarantee of our energy independence in terms of the supply of petroleum products.”
The new SONARA boss comes in at the time when the institution is operating at its lowest point, after suffering a fire outbreak in 2019 that handicapped its functioning.
The company also suffers from huge external debt and is among the most indebted public companies in Cameroon, the others being CAMAIRCO and the Douala Port Authority.
In December 2023, Prime Minister, Joseph Dion Ngute, explained to the National Assembly that feasibility studies on the reconstruction of the damaged refinery had been completed.
President Biya also noted, in his end of year speech on December 31, that the government was going to speed up the reconstruction of SONARA owing to fuel deficits that hit the country last year.
Although the government has not released official figures on the cost of the reconstruction, it is estimated at FCFA 250 billion.
