Mounouna Foutsou Replaces Issa Tchiroma as Employment Minister

Youth Affairs and Civic Education Minister, Mounouna Foutsou has been appointed interim Minister of Employment and Vocational Training.

His appointment was published in a statement by the Secretary-General at the Prime Minister’s Office, Fouda Seraphin Magloire.

He replaces former Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who resigned on Tuesday after holding the ministerial post for six years.

Tchiroma Bakary resigned and launched his presidential bid for the 2025 presidential election coming up this October.

He attributed his dramatic exit to the government’s failure to respond to the basic needs of Cameroonians, such as stemming unemployment and poverty, and said he was responding to the people’s desire for a regime change.

Mounouna Foutsou, who takes over his ministerial duties, is an experienced civil servant who has been part of President Paul Biya’s government for over 20 years.

He was appointed Minister of Youth and Civic Education in 2015 and survived the 2019 cabinet reshuffling that ushered in Joseph Dion Ngute as Prime Minister.

Foutsou, like most ministers in Biya’s long-serving regime, is very unpopular. He was publicly attacked and dusted with powder by anti-regime activists in Belgium in March, where he was on a government mission.

His ministry, the Ministry of Youth Affairs, is quite unpopular in a country where thousands of young people are reeling from unemployment and limited economic opportunities.

MMI