Jean Claude Bekolo Mbang elected Pioneer President of the "Federation of National Petroleum Professionals," on October 31.

National petroleum professionals in Cameroon have constituted themselves into a federation to ensure efficiency and effectively compete with multinationals that hitherto wholly controlled the market in the country. The "Federation of National Petroleum Professionals, FPNP," was created on October 4, 2013 and presented to the press last Thursday October 31 in Yaounde.

Stakeholders said the objective of the federation is to form a common front through which they can improve their activities and benefit from the same advantages as multinationals. According to the pioneer president of the federation, Jean Claude Bekolo Mbang, President, Director General of Socaepe S.A., unity is strength. "I have been in the petroleum sector for long and I realised that multinationals had monopolised the sector and nationals were operating in separate ranks. We came together so that our ideas could be well channeled to hierarchy. We want to be united so as to benefit from the same advantages like multinationals," he said. It emerged from the presentations that nationals have moved from zero per cent when the sector was liberilised in 2000 to about 25 per cent today and that in unity, they can constitute a force to reckon with.

The federation decided to confer the General Secretariat to an independent person to run its day-to-day activities. Legal luminary, Charles Marie Tchoungang, who was handed the task of Secretary General, told the press that the federation has put in place a centre for mediation, reconciliation and arbitration to manage conflicts among members. "We want to ensure the respect of ethics and get Cameroonians who can supply the market with quality and quantity petroleum products," Mr. Tchoungang said.

Sitting in for the Minister of Water Resources and Energy, the Director of Petroleum Products and Gas, Martin Mesumbe, lauded the initiative of the 14 founding members of the federation. "This is an initiative that government encourages because when government decided in 2000 to liberalise the sector, it was because it wanted nationals to enter the sector that had long been a monopoly of multinationals. When we talk about energy independence it is also about getting nationals into the sector. The government will always be behind initiatives like this and they will merit all the support from government as long as they go on the right track," he said. The Minister of Water Resources and Energy, he said, will personally preside at the installation of the pioneer executive of the federation.