The country’s biggest employer after the state is facing real difficulties that could cause bankruptcy for this company that pays the costs of tense sociopolitical situation in the English-speaking regions of the country.
By Achille Mbog Pibasso
The Camroondevelopment Corporation (CDC), located mainly in the southwestern region, which is experiencing secessionist violence with the northwest, the other English-speaking region of the country, is in bad shape, very bad even. Two years after the outbreak of this social crisis, the agro-industrial behemoth is no longer the jewel of the Cameroonian economy that it has always been. And for good reason, business is slowing down, barely 10% of the operational capacity of the company. A real economic disaster for the 22,000 employees, thousands of whom have not received salaries for several months, while many others have paid with their lives because regularly attacked by secessionist militias.
With an average production of 16,000 tonnes of bananas per month, the CDC produces barely 2000 currently, and no longer exports since September 2018, laments the Association banana of Cameroon (ASSOBACAM) which ensures representing and defending producers’ interests vis-à-vis third parties and public authorities. A situation that affects the entire sector, since Cameroon exports barely 24 000 tonnes of bananas per month against a monthly average of 40 000 tonnes there is still less than two years.
According to the National Technical Committee on the Balance of Payments, the difficulties of the Cameroon development corporation reduce rubber exports by 24% in 2018. In addition, CDC, which was one of the main producers of palm oil, is become a shadow of itself as in other sectors, causing a rise in the price of palm oil, especially since the country which already had an annual deficit of about 12 000 tonnes did not need it for to grow its difficulties.
The director general of this public company Franklin Ngoni Njie estimates that it takes nearly 30 billion FCFA to raise the production tool. Not only is this money difficult to find, but the social context does not favor the company’s normal operations. “We need security to protect our employees and our fields from the repeated attacks of people who do not want us to succeed,” he said. Unfortunately the stagnation of the crisis could definitively be right of this agro-industrial juggernaut.
