On May 30, 2014 in Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon, Dane native Jakob Sidenius officially assumed his post as Director General of Douala International Terminal (DIT), the concession holder of the Douala Port’s container terminal, replacing Neville Bisset. Jakob Sidenius is originally from Cotonou, Benin, where he managed the container terminal of the Beninese port which is reputed to be one of the most competitive in sub-Saharan Africa.

But before Cotonou, the new director general of DIT, a company that specialises in container terminal management, earned his stripes as head of the container terminal at ports of Havre, one of the most prestigious in France, Dunkerque (France), Copenhagen (Denmark), Brigantine (Hong-Kong) and Nouakchott (Mauritania).

According to the new chairman of the board at DIT, Hamadou Sali, with 25 years of experience in the maritime industry, Jakob Sidenius’ arrival at the helm of the Douala container terminal «demonstrates DIT’s commitment to profound change.”

This change is all the more vital as, according to the DIT board chairman, “for a few months now, the Douala Port has been in a growth crisis that has been affecting all aspects of our people’s lives.

This situation has led to a lot of misunderstandings” among the various stakeholders of the port. It is in an effort to end these misunderstandings and also to position Douala Port competitively, stressed the board chairman, that “since the start of the year, we have intensified our almost weekly dialogues with various partners in Cameroon’s growth-producing sectors such as timber, cocoa and coffee.”

In order to get Douala Port out of what he has characterised as “a growth crisis”, the DIT board chairman announced the upcoming acquisition of a third gantry crane to intensify handling operations at the container terminal. This acquisition follows that of four park gantry cranes in May 2014 which will be operational in July. The total investment amounts to 4 billion FCfa.

In total, indicated the board chairman, 10.5 billion FCfa will be invested by the container terminal concession holder over the 2014-2017 period to modernise the company and satisfy the business people who are the main users of the main port infrastructure in Cameroon.