The delay in the privatisation of some companies may instead produce positive results. Whereas some continue to wait for the glorious day when someone, somewhere will take over, some smart ones are busy carrying out reforms to upgrade their value so as to sell high when the time comes.

Some people think the reforms are a strategy to discourage the State from selling out the companies and to prove that privatisation was a hasty decision. Whether or not this is right, is another question. But the ongoing reforms in some major corporations like the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) and the Cameroon Telecommunications (CAMTEL) cannot leave any potential buyer indifferent.

After announcing the extension of its oil palm plantations, the country's largest agro-industry early this month said it will be stepping up banana production through the extension of its plantations which would lift its tonnage by over 60 percent by the end of 2009. This information yet to be fully digested, is followed by another announcement.

"The CDC launches open national invitation to tender for the construction of some infrastructure in the banana expansion project of the Cameroon Development Corporation", Henry Njalla Quan, the Corporations' General Manager said in an invitation to tender issued from the corporation's head office in Limbe.

The project sets out to construct13 banana production facilities including: a pesticide storage facility, a central warehouse, two farm offices, two farm toilets, three farm food sheds, a river pump shed, two nematicide facilities and two fertilizer stores. The project that will be entirely financed from the corporation's budget is expected to add more value to CDC and make it even more expensive for any potential buyer.

The case of CAMTEL is equally worth taking home. The introduction of new services epitomised by the integration of the mobile telephone device into its fixed telephone communication system has left no one indifferent. Thanks to CAMTEL, many Cameroonians are able to install Internet in their homes. They are able to make cheaper calls through the Internet. These and many other reforms, some of which are certainly still in the pipeline, are enough to make the State rethink the value of CAMTEL when a buyer presents itself.