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CHAPTER 5
REDRESSING A MISMANAGED ECONOMY
"It is idly, a hallow mockery, for us to pray to God to break the
oppressor's power, while we neglect the means of knowledge which will
give us the ability to break this power. God will help us when we help
ourselves."
--Frederick Douglas
"These days the trusting men of God have been 'conned' by the devil."
--Albino Luciani (Pope John Paul I)
In David Yallop’s In God's Name
A longstanding characteristic of the economies of all African nations is their
inability to withstand rather than get used to serious problems. The tendency is to blame
colonial administration and post-colonial influences. But a close look at these nations
reveal even more factors including administrative bottle-necks, social extravagance,
embezzlement, poor planning, lack of innovation and incentive, miss-allocation of
resources, lavish spending by some government officials and above all, the lack of a welldefined economic policy. In this chapter, we are not out to see how these factors arise,
but since it is a continuous process, I choose rather that we examine how the government
in Cameroun actively promotes these negative factors.
The people of the Cameroons are blessed with a rich natural endowment that if
properly utilized would promote the growth of the economy. Very few countries in the
world are as blessed as the Cameroons. But bureaucratic technocrats, though it had never
been anything worth praising, are ruining the economy. Their assessment of industrial
performance and privatization for instance, is a big joke just like their politics. Bad
politics leads to bad policies and bad economy (the reverse is true if an economy has to
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grow). In Cameroun, economists do not talk economics because economic theory does
not hold true when tied with their selfish motives, and so will never be used even for
hypothesizing. In Cameroun, most people want only jobs that are lucrative, government
and white-collar jobs. Everybody wants to be director but nobody wants to do what is
required of directors, be it for sports or industry, which would sustain the economy by
creating both low and high-income level jobs. A brief look at the New Deal Government
and her promiscuous promises to redress the Cameroun economy will show how
industry, political appointments, commerce, road infrastructure, law and order are run.
We will equally take a look at the properly construed but improperly implemented social
policies of social justice, integration and harmonization, and conclude this chapter and
the next two by looking at what is has meant to take an oath of "I do so swear" in
becoming a President in Cameroun.
NEW DEAL RHETORIC AND CAMEROUN ECONOMIC POLICY
Rhetoric can be of much use to political strategists. For the Biya regime, the dark
side of rhetoric is taken for totality. Paul Biya himself had used words that showed he
was out to impress and persuade the citizenry to follow him. This was good politics no
doubt, but together with his bunch of Beti advisers and compatriots they forgot that more
than a little of the many promises made to the people could be fulfilled. They opted for
total deceit, persuasions and exaggeration in all they did. They are still doing so and
thinking only about themselves. Cameroun has thus been tilted away from the axis of
development and her third-worldliness is growing with every new day. Therefore,
Camerounians are suffocating under bad policies.
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In Biya's political lingo, two words have been carefully chosen to woe
Camerounians: Rigor and Moralization. The rigor used in the President's speeches and
writings would have meant sternness and strictness; strict enforcement of say,
administrative rules as outlined by policy memo and in line with the Constitution. This, if
properly followed, would never have drawn Camerounians out to the streets for
whatsoever reason, be it for democracy and her institutional framework. What Biya has
been offering Camerounians is the other side of rigor; the bad side that has to do with
harsh conditions for the economy, and for the people.
The second important word chosen to capture Camerounians is Moralization.
True, all Camerounians know that their society badly needs morals. Even if there are old
morals, they need new ones. Biya saw this and instead of using the opportunity for a
commitment to altruism, he uses it for the selfish interest of having Camerounians to
obey paying taxes in time so that he carries the money to his foreign bank accounts.
Teaching good behavior, upholding right, rebuking and debunking any wrongs with rigor
becomes a mere joke. Thank God the morbid imagination of the New Deal Government
of using these two words against the interest of Camerounians has now turned out to be
counter-productive.
The New Deal Government has proven to Camerounians that incompetent and illtrained businessmen who believe that selfishness is preferred to self-interest occupy the
Unity Palace in Yaounde. As it is said in economics, the bunch that habit the Unity
Palace in Yaounde, Cameroun “have their cake and are eating it.” There is a wise saying
that, "if a person has built up enough of a structure of delusion, the things he does only
make sense as they relate to the delusion." Biya's rigor and moralization has failed to
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change even him, not to talk of all Camerounians; it is now self-delusion—the worst
illness.
For instance, we may ask Biya and his Ministers and Directors what has become
of the “chasing of files” in Yaounde? We do not need to elaborate on this issue since
there is abundant evidence at our disposal revealing the government's failure to fulfill just
this simple promise. This author knows of a woman who became a Grade I Teacher in
1980. Two years afterwards, she became a Grade one Teacher, after passing the entrance
exam and attending school for this purpose. Accordingly, her files were supposed to be
upgraded, whether she went after them or not. But as late as 1999, she had not received
her arrears, and barely began earning her Grade I salary a few years back. There are
thousands of Camerounians who are suffering from this national epidemic of chasing
files. It would be useless to count how many times she has gone to Yaounde to chase her
dossiers. It is useless also to state the outcome of the chase—it’s like chasing a shadow!
But I will say one thing: if I am given the chance to become a civil servant under the Biya
regime, forget it, as my American friends would say. I will reject such an offer with my
entire mind. The mere thought of chasing my file for years is like chasing my shadow and
is far worse than unemployment.
Many youths will take this stand because when employed you are not paid, but
are required to go borrowing money to compile employment documents, move to
Yaounde and "follow-up", that is, bribe the workers there until some day, some year, you
are called up over the national radio to report again with a copy of some missing
document. Then a month or two later you start receiving payment, and the funds are
consumed more by the debts than by your stomach. The greatest shock comes when not
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long from recovering from the ordeal of chasing files you are presented with a paycheck,
on which your retirement has been pronounced in some French grammar, leaving you to
do the homework of having someone translate it to you in English. You do not believe
the translation—thinking something definitely went wrong with the computers again—
the excuses you were used to hearing in the Ministry for over twenty-five years of
chasing dossiers. You may have to borrow again to go to Yaounde to verify for yourself.
Still you do not believe the information given to you, perhaps partly because some crook
in the Ministry took money from you promising to redress the situation. Then, someday
you may end up collapsing in the bank, like many have, when your paycheck fails to
show up. Your "retreat" or retirement is now official and requires that you take stock and
then tell your story to the gods that the whole of life has been one big nightmare of a
joke! The Cameroon of your days is seen as a true counterfeit of the old days, gone into
the darkness of history, not too long ago. Your bewilderment is more on what the future
holds for those behind you and those yet to be born.
The Cameroun that was "inherited" by Paul Biya in 1982 was one of the leading
economies in Africa, enjoying a steady 6% annual growth rate. The stability that this
country enjoyed was truly one that if rigor and moralization were introduced into the
system, the country would have been buoyant today. If Biya described the economy,
which Ahidjo left behind, as a "mismanaged economy," what does he want us to call it
now? How did an economy, which is described by Duignan Peter and Robert Jackson in
Politics and Government in African States 1960-1985, as “the only African state with a
triple—A credit rating from the World Bank,”1 suddenly lapse into minuses? The answer
is simple: The Biya government has its cake and is eating it!
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From a steady 6% annual rate, and an external debt of about 1.2 billion dollars in
1982 to a minus 5.9% of growth rate, an external debt of 7.5 billion dollars (US) and a
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of minus 1.8% in 1993, this certainly is a pointer that
Biyaism is a killer regime that is leading Cameroun to many minuses. By March 1994,
the Biya government had plunged Cameroun into minuses, so much that it needed to
generate “between CFA 220-250 billion to fund recovery.”2 These situations forced Biya
to hastily draft and sign a letter of intent, which was tended to the IMF for a loan.
Earlier in 1994, the poor economy and the pressure of internal debts equally led
the government to hurriedly sign what a West Africa Magazine correspondent termed “A
Controversial Bill,” by which huge acres of Cameroun’s tropical rain forest were to be
allocated to expatriate companies from Europe for exploitation. As much as 500,000
hectares were made available to individual companies. As Nkong Ofege noted, the bill
offended Deputies, especially “Article 16, which says that villagers living in forest
arrears have to obtain permission from the administration to exploit the forest”. An
NUDP Member of Parliament, who is quoted as saying, on National TV, that the bill
“was not drafted by Camerounians”, criticized the bill.3 Here, it is worth noting that
Cameroun is one of the richest countries with not only vast arrears of forest but its forest
is one of the most diverse on the planet with over 100 different woods, covering over 22
million hectares. The woods equally have great medicinal plants, making it the envy of
Europeans.4 But these Europeans and our political leaders have a way of owning these
plants and the entire forest: they kill it in the name of lumbering or forestry exploitation!
Visitors from the northern direction are always dangerous not only to humans but also to
plant life as well—remember that!
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At no time in the history of Cameroun since independence did it do so poorly in
terms of its economy. Even as far back as in the 1960s, Cameroun enjoyed an average of
3.7 % growth rate, which rose to 5.4% in the 1970s.5 Today it is but obvious that if
Camerounians, especially the English-speaking Camerounians, accused the first President
Ahmadou Ahidjo for neglecting them and for being a cool-blooded dictator, then that
dictator was equally a brilliant fellow, whom compared to Biya, must be commended for
having done a pretty damned good job!
How can the economy grow when a Cameroun Airline 747 plane is used to
transport the President's son to America, while at the same time smuggling drugs and
embezzled funds instead of carrying passengers? Think of another planeload of Paul
Biya's extended family members for a three-month tour of Europe and other parts of the
world! Today, Cameroun Airlines, once a giant parastatal has shrunk to only two to three
planes - one for passengers, one for the President and another for his family members and
tribesmen? How can we talk national investment when it can be measured simply by
examining what the President and his wife, and his Ministers own at home and abroad?
Who meets the expenditure of our President when he makes his average two-times per
month tour of the world? Americans frown at President George Bush (Father and Son)
for spending their dollars to crush hostile foreign governments that threaten not only
American foreign trade and foreign policy, but also world peace. But our President who
tours more than the President of the richest Nation on Earth spends the Cameroun
reserves and budget in consulting the ‘best' witch doctors on Earth! Then the economy
rots.
However, the government has continued to shift the blame onto the falling prices
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of agricultural products in the World Market. Can the Essingan Fame Political
Economists tell the world by how much these cocoa, coffee, banana and rubber prices fell
in the World Market so that farmers should not be paid for so long a time (1986-1992)?
Camerounians do not need to work on absolute figures to know what the answer is.
Besides falling prices for agricultural products, could Essingan Fame Technocrats tell us
how, and in what times monies of the Marketing Board Reserve are supposed to be used?
We know that Essingan Fame people cannot provide the right answers because their
brains no longer function properly. Theirs is an economy of Mercedes Benz, Pajero,
Reynold 25, and French wine.
Theirs is an economy of uncompleted ministerial
buildings that now overshadow the horizon and skylines of Yaounde, and costing billions
of taxpayer's money, and the under-utilization of the huge investment in the Cameroun
Radio and Television Corporation (CRTV). Now, I advise Essingan people to stop
talking of "Fame" and talk more of "sham and shame”—Essingan Shame!
One can hardly think of any leader in history (not even Joseph II of Austria) who
had an opportunity like that, which Paul Biya inherited in Cameroun but made a total
mess of it. It would be proper to say that he and his administrators are the greatest
blunderers, jokers and swindlers in Cameroun history. This is their epitaph. All that is
offered Camerounians is inebriety, and a majority of our Francophone brothers whose
minds have become, some what, perverted, can hardly see what damage is being done to
this “nation.”
How could the economy have developed when, for instance, money carrying the
effigy of former President Ahidjo because of personal reasons was withdrawn from
circulation while the 1000 Francs note carries that of President Biya's head? How could
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the economy be expected to recover given that President Biya and his late wife almost
always made massive withdrawal of funds from our banks and even the national
treasury? How could the economy not collapse when the funds from Parastatals are used
to finance consumption and pay civil servants instead of investment? How can the
economy be revived when the adamant Head of State prefers the economy to be frozen
by an opposition "Ghost Town Operation" rather than go into dialogue to change
Government policy? From 6/11/82 to 14/05/91, Cameroun received aid from friendly
countries, forty-seven times, which, according to a newsletter widely circulated by the
Cameroun military, amounted to, "More than 100,000 million US Dollars of which Biya
and his Ministers gambled over it to foreign banks."6
When asked in private, but unfortunately for the President, not as private as he
would have wanted, by Arch Bishop Jean Zoa if were true that he was responsible for
putting the country to a wild economic crisis, Dr. Biya says; "Camerounians are very
stupid and lazy; that is why the crises are continuing up till date. Many people don't like
to work for their living, only farmers have shown an endeavor, but you know one hand
cannot tie a bundle".7 I would reserve my comments but will urge the youths and farmers
to speak out about their plight. I am sure even primary school pupils know that the
Cameroun Head of State and his government are a shame, or a typical example of a
nightmare joke of bad leadership.
REEXAMINING THE PRODUCE MARKETING ORGANIZATION (PMO)
The Produce Marketing Organization was founded in 1954 and was fully
operating from January 1955, in the then never colonized but never free or independent
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“British Southern Cameroons.” The Colonial government or administration established it
with the exploitative aim of easing cash produce to Britain back in the days before and
after the plebiscite. According to Mukong (1989), it was an exploitative tool because
funds paid to farmers were very low; funds paid to farmers and those who loaded produce
into ships amounted to nothing more than 40% of the total revenue. This organization
also aimed at stabilizing farm incomes. How this was done is not the concern of this
work. What is important is that farmers knew nothing about falling prices for their
produce. What they knew was yearly increments of revenue per kilogram or bag of coffee
or cocoa. Such increments made farmers to be happy and the dreams of development and
progress was always alive in their minds; and this made government look responsible in
their eyes.
To strengthen the spirit of farmers, the colonial administration (and latter the
“Southern Cameroons” government) made sure that reserves were accumulated. It was
from such reserve that funds were received for the maintenance of farm to market roads.
Government used this money to prove her worth to citizens. Many other developmental
projects were also funded as such. The very existence of the PMO made the functioning
of the “Southern Cameroons” Government to be efficient especially when compared to
what “Southern Cameroonians” have experienced in the past twenty-two years. Local
Councils had enough money to run their areas. People were almost contented because
their streets, for instance, were kept clean especially those of the “Southern Cameroons”
Capital of Buea. It is important to note that the Council of this capital even employed
road sweepers, and almost every one hundred meters there was a dustbin, which had to be
emptied every end of the day. That was “Southern Cameroons” then.
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If anyone talks of social amenities today one will only have to laugh because the
population pays heavily for the little they get. This author still remembers those days of
the late sixties very clearly, when in then West Cameroon, water and hospital services
were almost completely free. Preventive drugs such as aspirin and codeine, and iodine
were free. To take a small town like Wum in those days and compare the standards of
social amenities it gets today, will only provoke much more laughter. Any leakage on a
pipeline, toilet or fault on the telephone line was repaired with alacrity, most often within
a few minutes of notifying the office concerned. Yet, all was not well. People had their
ambitions and saw them conflicting with those of others. Not all development demands
were met, but it was clear that the future held brighter days, though road infrastructure
has always been a problem.
The point this author is stressing here has to do with the fact that “Southern
Cameroons” farmers made their government to be rich and responsible but it was not an
ideal state. The power of the PMO was one of the attractions—a pull factor that forged
the now deadly unity with East Cameroun on May 20, 1972. One of the very first things
that Ahidjo did was to christen the PMO as the National Produce Marketing Board
(NPMB) and the Head Quarters was hijacked from Victoria, in “Southern Cameroons,” to
Douala (in French Cameroun or Cameroon Proper) since unity would never have been
properly served if it remained in Victoria! This nationalist spirit was a fake since three
years later, a huge reserve that had been accumulated by the West Cameroon Government
(48 billion francs CFA) disappeared into thin air, and has since not been talked about, let
alone accounted for.
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In a petition addressed to the Chairman of the United Nations Sub-Commission
on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in 1990, on behalf of
Anglophone Cameroun, Albert Mukong raised among many problems that of the Produce
Marketing Organization. He revealed that, "If the 48 billion francs had been put into a
fixed deposit account at an Ordinary 5% simple interest rate, it would have, in 15 years
fetched 36 billion francs."8 If we should use the underestimated cost of constructing a
kilometer of road in Cameroun of 100 million francs (CFA) (1984), then the 84 billion
(36bn + 48bn) would have constructed close to 840 kilometers of roads in “Southern
Cameroons”. It is left for “Southern Cameroonians” to think for themselves how many
kilometers of roads they now have and what development has been retarded by the lack
of good roads, and by the Unity with Cameroun Proper or La Republique du Cameroun,
as a whole. The petitions lamented that the governments of Yaounde have squandered
these funds, saying, "the West Cameroon Government even in the ticket of its financial
crisis of 1965/66 orchestrated by the Ahidjo government, against the Jua West Cameroon
Government, never touched this fund."9
We can now examine several questions concerning the functioning of that NPMB,
so as to have a clearer understanding of the lament of “Southern Cameroonians” in the lie
of Cameroun unity. Why was the NPMB not equally responsible for the quality and
marketing of produce in the provinces of former East Cameroon as it was in the
Provinces of West Cameroon? Why, specifically, were the offices of NPMB in other
provinces (besides the Northwest and Southwest) responsible only for ‘quality'
evaluation? Why was a Supreme Office opened in Paris? Did “Southern Cameroonians”
ever tell the Francophones that the defunct PMO had a Head Office in London or Lagos,
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which two capitals served as some point in time as Paris is to Yaounde, Cameroun? How
did the government use the NPMB for National Developmental purpose, and were any
preferences given to “Southern Cameroons,” if not, why not? Where exactly were the
reserves (brought forward) from Victoria kept or if they vanished, how? What were, and
where are the reserves accumulated by NPMB since 1972? Why were the Director
Generals always Francophones? Why were the offices of Francophone province
overstaffed if they were meant only for quality evaluation? Why was it that over 90% of
the workers in the Head Office in Douala were Francophones? Why was it that after
dismissing workers of the NPMB in the North West and South West Provinces, 150
workers were transferred from the Ebolowa office (in the South Province) to Kumba in
the South West Province (1989-1990)? What extra ability had those Francophones who
were transferred to Kumba? Answers to these and other questions may only be seen in
the Francophone-Anglophone problem, the problem that West Cameroon (“Southern
Cameroons”) under no circumstance, is supposed to have become a colony of East
Cameroun (La Republique du Cameroun).
How else can anyone else explain such treatment given to West Cameroonians?
How else can we explain the fact that the defunct NPMB has now resurrected under
another name? Who knows for certain the functions of the recreated NPMB? I guess their
function is to cover-up footprints of embezzlers in the Paris Super office, besides the little
tricks played in Cameroun offices.
If anyone was ever close to the late I.A. Musaga, then the sad stories of the
NPMB could be well understood. The former director of PMO served as Deputy Director
of the NPMB until his retirement a few months to his death in 1990. Three days before
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his death in Azeri, Bamenda, Musaga summoned me to his bedside and told me many
stories of the NPMB from Bobo Hamatuke to Roger Mellingui. He told me how all he
did was pre-sign and arranges papers for the directors, and how on the final analysis, the
papers that emerged had different contents from what he had previously signed. He had
complained to S.T. Muna, J.N. Foncha, and many Anglophone politicians, but got no
reply. He said a process to recover, or explain the disappearance of reserves brought
forward from Victoria to Douala met a dead end. He lamented that the events at the
NPMB National office in Douala were responsible for the illness and stress that befell
him. When he realized that his generation was not going to do anything to improve upon
the management of the NPMB, and the benefits to former West Cameroon, he then
decided to be reluctant in recruiting Anglophones. When they came to him seeking jobs
in the NPMB, he would encourage them to go for further studies. "More education,"
Musaga stressed, "is what we need to improve or get out of this mess."
The high salary scale of the NPMB, Musaga emphasized, was a delusion that
would not last, and which its current recipients would regret in the future—in terms of
time wasted.
Besides, the artificialness of the salary scale of most Parastatals in
Cameroun were totally at odds with conventional wisdom on how to manage such
corporations with efficiency, in not only accounting but also in economic terms. The
cost-benefit analyses for a sustainable future were totally lacking and there was every
indication that many such Parastatals were going to completely fail, especially from an
Anglophone corporate management point of view.
The most painful part of Musaga’s story had to do with an arbitrary tax of 5
million francs (CFA) levied on him very close to retirement and when he was physically
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handicap, on the grounds that since he became Deputy Director, he was under-taxed.
This is what the Yaounde governments do to most Anglophone elites ever since the lies
of unification, in many different ways. Musaga once told me, “the only way you can ever
get out of this is to arm yourself in any way and with more education,” he implored me.
"I have been an administrator all my life,” he lamented. “I had good education too. But, I
know that things are only getting worse..." he paused, then added, "for your generation
and the future." He looked at me for many seconds and demanded to know if I had eaten.
I could not answer. On the second day of my visit, the most important thing Musaga said
was that I should do everything to empower my generation "never to fall for political
lies," of the Cameroun governments, he warned. In less than 36 hours from this warning
I.A. Musaga took his last breath.
When in the early eighties, the North West Co-operative Association Ltd.
(NWCA) started protesting the falling prices, and the above discrimination in questions,
they were brandished by our oppressors as people of the "noise-making" and "open-eye"
province. The NWCA was also called an organization of "Co-operate-thieves"—a
connotation from the word “co-operatives,” even though Francophones do not know
anything about co-operatives - not to talk of their management! We are not denying that
there were cases of fraud in the NWCA. The point is that even with their own fraud, they
were able to raise alarm as to the way the hi-jacked PMO in the name of NPMB was
functioning. It is with no reservation that this author thinks the activities of Cameroun
politicians are responsible for the so-called economic crisis. The "Economic Crisis" to
many a “Southern Cameroonian” was a design to frustrate them but went bad. It was
designed to render our parents poor so that they can reduce the number of children sent to
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school, especially to foreign countries, notably Nigeria, Britain, Germany and the US. It
was a design to lower the purchasing power of our parents so as to force birth control on
them and also to reduce the “Southern Cameroons” population / growth rate. This, the
politicians think would make integration and harmonization easy, the Cameroun way to
facilitate the colonization of “Southern Cameroons.” But the situation went out of hand
because of Beti lavish spending, turning the "economic crisis" into a national emergency.
These days it has become common knowledge that the Cameroun Government
did not honor trade contracts with firms in North America and Europe that wanted coffee
and cocoa. Yet, the warehouses of the NPMB were still jammed full with this produce.
The Cameroun government did all it could to transfer the blame for non-payment of
coffee farmers to the world market price drop, which ironically, it fabricated. It equally
attributed the said fall in price to shrinking demand for coffee. But on the contrary, coffee
is almost a daily drink to most Western workers, and to charge that its demand was
falling was and is simply ridiculous as it is preposterous. Camerounians should have hope
that one day these matters shall be investigated. And what makes these lies from
government to be more painful is that it affects mostly the downtrodden of the
unfortunate “Southern Cameroons.” If the process of unification and re-unification has
not been political lies all along, how else can one explain the present state of life in the
“Southern Cameroons” or at best the entire Cameroun?
What then is the future of “Southern Cameroonians” given the tracks of the “New
Deal” Government? Camerounian markets and offices that manage the economy are now
for foreigners and controlled by foreigner. Most Camerounian youths have been turned
into children of garbage bins and evil streets, while most parents, eyes and mouths wide
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open, have no prospects of retiring to live their last days in peace rather than pain. God
has to send someone to come to the rescue of the Camerounians, especially the badly
entrapped “Southern Cameroonians”—someone who has nerves—someone whom
without mincing words would pronounce the dirty unity with La Republique du
Cameroun, which has produce but a corrupted polity, dead. Put it this way: “a Daniel has
got to come to judgment” in this Cameroun, and that “Daniel” must make it possible for a
pound of flesh to chunked out of those who have in the past four decades held power in
Cameroun! It is extremely hard, if not impossible for anyone born in the late fifties or
early sixties to buy into the lies of the Cameroun unification. The illusion, lies and
hardship that “unification” has produced, especially for “Southern Cameroons” peoples
must be questioned and all efforts made and geared towards redressing the situation or
terminating the union with Cameroun Republic, as it is, out-rightly.
THE INDUSTRIAL FREE TRADE ZONE (IFTZ)
It is a mockery that all the arguments I advanced for and against the Industrial
Free Trade Zone (IFTZ), which was supposed to have been operational since 1991 are
defeated by a layman's opinion of "not in Cameroun!" I concluded most arguments with
friends who debated the pros and cons of the endeavor by saying the IFTZ would be a
good thing following the present level of unemployment, and brain drain in Cameroun. I
denied the long-term advantage that it will lead to transfer of technology. I do not believe
in the transfer of technology. I believe in the buying of out-dated technology as Brazil has
done for Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz buses. I believe in the CIA, the KGB, and the
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"stealing" of technology. Transfer of technology, never—maybe only when it is no longer
of any use to the owners.
The issue at stake here is the IFTZ: when it was supposed to be operational, why
it never took off, what the advantages could have been for Cameroun and why all these
have not taken place. The IFTZ was an alien and expatriate initiative aimed at promoting
industrialization in the Third World by taking the industries closer to cheap labor and to
the market, beside advantages in terms of overall low costs to the entrepreneurs.
Sometime in the mid eighties, a good number of African countries were clamoring for the
IFTZ, knowing the beneficial effects it would have on their economies. By then
Cameroun’s economic performance was rated number one in all Africa. Coincidentally,
little did the industrialists know that the so-called peaceful change of government that
increased Cameroun’s popularity was very short lived, and that tribalism, embezzlement
and other public ills were going to plunder the economy. Industrialist fell for the free
trade zone because of the benefits it gave them in terms of unrestricted profit figures they
were allowed to take home, wherever home was. But as time went on, it became clear
that the hopes of Camerounians to benefit from the industrial process were far fetched.
Even the process of preparing the necessary paper work for the foreign companies was
tribalized, and distributed among the close friends of the Essingan Fame group.
I for one was very hopeful that by now some foreign firm would have employed
me to use my small knowledge of economics and performance appraisal of industry. My
cousin, John Teneng, told me that I was just being excited for nothing; that the Cameroun
of yesterday is not the one of today, emphasizing that situations have worsened. My
cousin told me that it would not be long and I will be able to see clearly, and that in order
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to understand a phenomenon in Cameroun, always try to read everything upside down or
you will end up being your own fool. My cousin told me that if I believe in the Biya
government, then one day I would both sigh in deep disappointment or cut-off my own
head and drink from it! He reminded me that we never had faith in that man, and of our
arguments and boycott of the Bamenda Congress way back in 1985. I was being lectured
not to forget the task to liberate our people from an oppressive government. Since that
day, I have sighed so many times in disappointment especially as dreams can no longer
be lived. We are concerned more with the failure of policy in Cameroun than with
whether the IFTZ is good or bad.
I believed not until now that Camerounian minds could easily reform before they
attempt implementing reforms for their social, political and economic decays. October
1990, when I returned from Nigeria probably carried away by the consciousness of
Nigerians over their socio-economic and politically delicate situation. I thought that with
the vast natural resources and great climatic blessings, together with the hard-earned
IFTZ, (advantages that Cameroun has over Nigeria and most other African countries) that
Cameroun could easily pull out of the vicious circle of poverty that is threatening to
subjugate three quarters of the world's population. Fresh with economic theory in me, I
argued for what is now no longer a fact, for as far as Cameroun is concerned, economic
theory only crashes when put to task with government policy.
By December 1990, it began to be clear to me, just as I had been warned, that the
talks of "not in Cameroun" were true. It was obvious that government's talk of having the
IFTZ operational by mid-1992 were mere jokes and political propaganda. This was
because those called up to do the planning were familiar ones of evil streets—the
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Owonas, Onanas, and Mbargas from Paul Biya’s tribe. This made the IFTZ to be doomed
from inscription. It is a misdirected economic opening for Cameroun, and it would be fair
to charge that Cameroun deprived other African countries that competed with her for the
IFTZ of this vital opportunity for development.
Even if the IFTZ became operational some day, her efficiency would be seriously
flawed not only by the Francophone mentality on corporate management, but also by the
delicate touch of a Beti clique that is ruining Cameroun today. It is an anachronistic
endeavor that would, rather than make Cameroun to emerge, submerge her even further.
It is a very pathetic case.
Cameroun "industrialists" and policy makers are good at misfiring; they have
imitated Fritz Thyssen who together with some German industrialists in the 1930s and
40s financed Hitler's war machine and campaign for hatred. They (the Beti) are doing
exactly this for Cameroun. They are wasting money that should have been used for
National Development to finance Beti students against Anglophone and Bamileki
students; they are using taxpayer's money to import grenades and arms for a Beti Army;
they are financing hatred between Francophones and Anglophones, and between North
Westerners and South Westerners, instead of financing industry and agriculture. While
opening up for an IFTZ, they are on the other side selling corporations, plantation and
industries to foreigners and questionable rich Camerounians at the same time they
welcome new firms from abroad. IFTZ. These are irreconcilable contradictions.
Cameroun industrialists (Beti) have forgotten that like Hitler, the end result is the
same: war, destruction of life and property, economic, political and social chaos, and the
separation of Cameroun, evidently, their doom! The IFTZ would have been a good
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pacesetter for the new political economy language of “Privatization” spoken by the Biya
regime after 1992. To bring in new companies from abroad, the government would have
created a market economy atmosphere, void of corruption with open, fair, and public
offers in privatizing previously publicly owned corporations and parastatals. As usual
there was much talking, but less action. Suddenly, by 1994, the language of “
Privatization” became “ Private Privatization.” Privatization moved from the hands of
Government in to that of private individuals who exploited the situation for private
benefits.
The most glaring cases of scandals that occurred include those of the Cameroun
Development Corporation (CDC), the Water Corporation (SNAC), and that of Societe De
Development Du Coton (SODECOTON). The case of SODECOTON, for an example,
was the most alarming. Government shares in the cotton parastatal were sold under the
table at less than one-seventh of the potential value, and about 48% of these were to
known government officials. This was another example of government officials robbing
government. On the case of SODECOTON, Africa Confidential, (a London weekly
publication) lamented that,
Shares were sold at F.CFA 7,000—9,000 each, when their real
value…was F.CFA 50,000—60,000. Losses to the state were put at up to
CFA 25,000 million (US $12.5million). The sale took place outside the
legal framework of the privatization process, which stipulates that all
transactions be carried out transparently, proceeded by public offers.10
Such transactions are common in Cameroun’s “market economy”. It is very
surprising that this time the French Government, of all governments on earth also raised
their eyebrows. Africa Confidential reveals that,
On a stop over on March 23, French Corporation Minister Bernard Debre,
reportedly warned senior ruling Party members, including Prime Minister
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Achidi Achu and Ex-Premier and current National Director of the Banque
de Etats d’Afrique Centrale, Sadou Hayatou, of the serious consequences
of the deal for Cameroun’s relations with France.11
Whether such concerns from the French come from the heart, or are mere lip
service is not important. The truth remains that the Paul Biya regime is a killing one
economically, and otherwise. The opportunity that the Cameroons had with the IFTZ and
the foolish industrial technocrats are squandering can be compared only to that of an
imaginary soccer player who dribbles through a tight defense and is faced only with the
goalkeeper. Then what happens next stuns spectators as the player then successfully gets
pass the goalkeeper only to kick the ball so hard that it sails over the bar! Like a player
who fails to role the ball into the net barely two meters from the goal, Cameroun
politicians have failed to score. They have squandered the opportunity to completely
transform the Cameroun economy and save the masses from third worldliness, by
building a Brazilian-like or Taiwanese-like economy.
Judging from these facts, one can conclude that the Biya regime is very hostile,
very extravagant, and is an enemy to the very existence and ‘unity’ of Cameroun. This
regime lacks civility and is very irresponsible. Maybe it knows nothing of modern
civilization, or maybe it deliberately refuses to identify with the modernity of both market
economy and democracy. Perhaps these modern virtues are beyond their understanding
and comprehension. If that is the case, then they are likely to remain so forever.
Therefore it would not be an understatement to conclude that power in Cameroun is in
the wrong hands—just as was the case in Liberia under the Sergeant Doe, and in
Mobutu’s Zaire. What happened in these two cases could also be the fate of one of
Africa’s most incredibly beautiful countries—Cameroun.
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If Camerounians are not prepared to face this fate, then time must not be wasted
in trying to put commonsense into the heads of the politicians and so-called industrialists.
Camerounians ought not waste any time trying to change them; they cannot be changed
or even reformed by acts of logic and reason--and not even by psychiatrists. The only
way they could be help is that Camerounian masses be freed from their power by doing
one of two things: overthrow them by all means necessary, or simply dissolve the union
with “Southern Cameroons” so that it can become a nation on its own and allow the
Francophones and their true Cameroun to rot into, yet untold mediocrity of French
modern civilization of distorted reality of neo-imperialism. To do any of the above does
not need only reforms, but let reformation be a product of rebellion and a revolution—for
a lasting solution. Cameroun can do with either or both.
“SOUTHERN CAMEROONS’” INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
It is easy to destroy any people especially when you destroy their agriculture and
industry. That is the fate of “Southern Cameroonians.” What government policy in La
Republique du Cameroun has done to “Southern Cameroons” people since 1972, when
President Ahmadou Ahidjo hatched the big unity lie to kill the “Southern Cameroons’
government, is that policies help people to abandon their coffee and cocoa farms—
agriculture being the backbone of industry, if destroyed what will be the future of
industry? The sad story of industrial decay in “Southern Cameroons” can be seen from
the activities of Yaounde policy makers since Cameroun became "united." Prior to
the1972's inglorious and unholy unity with La Republique du Cameroun, “Southern
Cameroons” had numerous industries which included the manufacturing of exercise
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books, paper, clothes, umbrellas, Palm oil, tea, cocoa, coffee, soap, printing and the
generation of electricity.
Twenty-two years after unification, instead of moving forward in manufacturing,
the industries have virtually disappeared with the exception of Ndu and Tole tea estates.
Palm oil production is being discouraged as we all know how treacherous government
policy towards the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) has been in recent days,
it is now bent on "privatizing" it. The extraction and refining of oil (petroleum) is going
on, but is not being accounted for. It was rumored that production could stop in 1995 and without “Southern Cameroons” having benefited anything from it. The small
manufacturing towns of Victoria, Lobe, Tiko, Moliwe, Wum, Ndu, Ndop and Santa have
virtually lost their importance as far as manufacturing is concerned—becoming ghost
towns with only abandoned factories to be seen. Government has now forced “Southern
Cameroonians” to depend on Douala (in East Cameroun), which has now become the
focus of industrialization and given priority for Industrial location.
The survival of the tea estates in “Southern Cameroons” is due more to the fact
that tea cannot do well in French Cameroun, else it should have been frustrated or
transferred too. The Wum Area Development Authority (WADA), which was started by
the Germans and commonly referred to by locals as “German Farm” that specialized in
producing fruits and fruit-products, dairy products, coffee and maize, and the
manufacturing of household furniture has not only lost that authority but has virtually
disappeared. The National Oil Corporation SO.NA.RA, is not for “Southern
Cameroonians”, but is a paradise for Francophones who totally dominate the plant and its
residential quarters, so much that the dominant language spoken is French. Here, one may
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argue that Cameroun is Bilingual. But this argument would be dismissed on the premise
that it is the lucrativeness of this particular industry that has drawn the Francophones to
Victoria or Limbe as the Cameroun government would prefer we call it. The same
argument holds true for the defunct NPMB. Besides, the petroleum plant is registered but
in Douala (and not Victoria) where the taxes are paid and from where the petrol is
distributed throughout Cameroun. This is the marginalization of the Anglophones’ story.
If someone were to doubt this evidence, then we should further question why the
Francophones do not dominate in the casual level of the workers of the Cameroun
Development Corporation, (CDC).
Thus SO.NA.RA is best described as a colony within a colony's colony. The
colony is “Southern Cameroons” and the colony within a colony's colony is SO.NA.RA!
The original colony, of course is the pitiful ghostly La Republique du Cameroun being
continuously drained in secret and personalized ties with the so-called civilized nation of
France—a poor European nation that has a dirty history of feeding on African wealth,
from Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, through a long list of thirteen countries including
Cameroun, which it has totally married without pretence or payment of dowry. Even an
automatic telephone transmitter given to the people of Kumbo, Nso, by the Canadian
government in honor of the late Professor Bernard N. Fonlon, has been removed and
installed in Bafoussam; in Francophone Cameroun, where all things must be moved.
The marginalization story continues in the grass-fields of the “Southern
Cameroons” in the plains of Ndop. What one can find as the remains of a once very
popular Upper Nunn Valley Development Authority (UNVDA), an agricultural project in
the town of Ndop, are abandoned factories, warehouses, and rice plains, tractors and
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other equipment. Official government assessment of the situation has been totally off the
mark, and so very wrong. This has been the result of destructive utterances by
government ministers that the Ndop rice is not good. One can claim rightfully that
having tested rice from all corners of the world, the Ndop rice is the best—the very best.
This rice has a unique flavor and tastes much better than any imported brands from
Europe or Asia. When boiled, the rice suddenly develops a glittering as if it has been
coded with butter. Why do the Cameroun Ministers degrade high quality produce that is
capable of fetching foreign markets and earnings for Cameroun? The answer is that the
ministers do this to discourage the production of rice in Cameroun, so as to promote their
private businesses of importing cheap and low quality rice from Europe and Asia. And
we hear Cameroun Radio and Television programs, including “Calling the Women” talk
about malnutrition?
This “import protection” policy of the greedy elites holding political power in
Cameroun has not only been the plight of Anglophone but that of all Cameroun rice
farmers. I read similar dirty tricks in Nigeria, and its rice importing business. When the
Governor of Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa, and his Secretary General, Dr. Bala Ousman,
(now, I would still suppose, a Professor of History at the Ahmadou Bello University
(ABU), Zaria, Nigeria) tried to remedy the situation in Nigeria, they were termed
Socialists—this reminded me of the saying by the Bolivian Bishop, Don Mattera, that
“when you give food to the poor, they call you a Saint; when you ask why the people are
poor, they call you a Communist!” And one may add that these days when you speak the
truth, they term you a radical; and when you take actions in defense of the truth, worst by
caring necessary arms, they brand you a terrorist!
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Ousman, your fate will be sealed by some government decree, a government headed by a
dictator such as Biya, Babangida or Abacha—all of them national bank and Treasury
robbers.
It should also be noted here that the Nigeria Military Dictator wearing the shoes
of the President Ibrahim B. Babangida, banned them from contesting in the never coming
Presidential elections that would have restored civil rule in Nigeria. Greater Nigeria was
then, and has been so for the most part, not different from this enclave of political sins
that the French have created in Central Africa in the name of Cameroun. This analogy is
significant in that it gives us reason to understand elitist politics not only in Cameroun
but also in Nigeria and all of Black Africa. Cruel and evil policies are hatched to deprive
mass production of certain commodities in protection and promotion of imports. This is
aimed at ensuring that the business ventures of the politicians are protected. The end
result is that the national output, gross or net drops and with it the national income and all
the negatives, such as falling per capita income, all fall in place as a result of policy
blunders. In the final analysis the effects are translated from a fall in national
expenditures to a falling standard of living for the entire country. As the years go by
“Third Worldliness” is promoted or preserved rather than conquered.
To completely halt the production of rice in the Ndop area, the plains are now
being gradually submerged by an ever- expanding Bamendjin Dam, constructed with the
pretext that the Edea Dam (in Cameroun Proper or East- or French Cameroun) that
generates much of the electricity for Cameroun need more water supply in the dry season.
We do not need to ask what has happened to plans of constructing the Mentchum Falls in
Befang, which has the capacity and energy that if properly harnessed could supply
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electricity to the whole of the Central and West African sub-regions. This waterfall is just
another “Southern Cameroons”' asset that is being neglected because some fake
Francophone - French researchers say the rocks of the waterfall cannot sustain the weight
of a dam, and that as a matter of fact (a big lie) the waterfall itself is being eroded. This
kind of rhetoric is what Americans would call “bull”—something!
If anyone were ever interested in researching how grass kills coffee plants, and
how a factory is being turned into a 21st century museum, then the person should visit the
Santa Coffee Estate and factory, in Santa Sub Division. That town, my hometown, is
where President Paul Biya took his second Prime Minister in pretending to attempt
reforming government. Worst still, the new Prime Minister Achidi Achu, was Director of
the NWCA, which protested Cameroun government farm policies and all other
malpractices that accompanied the operations and funds from the Produce Marketing
Board (PMO). To this author, it is not hard to see why Biya picked Achidi Achu as Prime
Minister, especially given that agriculture is the base of the lives of a majority of
“Southern Cameroonians”. As a coffee farmer myself, and someone from Santa area, it
would be wise to let other “Southern Cameroonians” tell the story. To be candid, with the
exception of SO.NA.RA, no single factory has been built in “Southern Cameroons” since
unification. Even the hydro-electricity plant in Yoke, which used to serve “Southern
Cameroonians,” was closed and the most important parts stolen to East Cameroon’s main
hydro-electricity plant at Edea, just after Douala on the road to Yaounde. Large
“Southern Cameroons” cities such as Bamenda, Kumba and Kumbo have no single
factory—I mean zero factories! What is prominent in these cities and its immediate
surrounding towns and rural areas is commerce—the marketing of imitation goods
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imported mostly from Aba, Nigeria, and used goods from the United States, Germany
and Belguim.
To further frustrate “Southern Cameroonians,” the government encouraged the
opening of thousands of drinking places. Everywhere there are off-licenses littered all
over “Southern Cameroons” towns and cities. In some streets in Bamenda, like Gana
Street, every house has an off-license—a street of about a mile long all chocked up with
houses, and each house a drinking place. This is true too of Longla and Cow Streets. In
Victoria, it is true of Church Street and many others. The same is true of many streets in
Kumba and Kumbo. The people, without industries in which they could work, sweat and
earn money for most of the day, are now drugging themselves to death with beer with
money earned from their food and cash crop money or from their own palm bushes out of
frustration with broken promises from their own governments!
There is equally the problem of mass unemployment and that of high crime-wave.
Juvenile and adult delinquency is at its apex, so much that some adults even fight each
other or openly pride themselves about their girl friends, or what is popularly known in
Cameroun as “dauxieme bureau”--in dignifying adultery. The result is that many drop
out of school for one reason or another. Hence, there is mass exodus of these youths to
Douala and Yaounde, (the two largest cities in Cameroun) where they can find some
mean jobs or prostitute to make ends meet. Those who cannot afford to move stay
behind and are tempted to steal and eventually swell-up the population of the already too
crowded jails—the most popular industry in the “Southern Cameroons” today.
Government has solved this problem by instead easing exodus. The road to
Douala is the only properly tarred road from any of the English-speaking provinces.
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Besides, Honorable Solomon T. Muna helped to contribute in promoting exodus by
permitting the construction of modern prisons in the cities of the “Southern
Cameroons”—that at least if the survivors of Lake Nyos disaster are denied modern
villages, and the entire populations of the “Southern Cameroons” denied factories and
other modern business ventures, they can at least boast of modern prisons, which should
serve as homes to those who dare protest government integrative policies. Perhaps it is a
way of eventually having the population of “Southern Cameroons” neutralized, extinct or
forced into exile in the name of national integration, which equally means destroying
industries and corporations in the “Southern Cameroons.” They are at least succeeding in
driving the masses into exile, and because of poverty and some suspicious vaccines
administered in the territory especially in the urban areas, the population is equally dying
out—of AIDS and other related diseases. This is particularly, why towns such as Mamfe,
Kumba, Bali, Wum, Tiko, and Kumbo that showed signs of prosperity and fast growth in
the “Southern Cameroons” before and immediately after the unification lie, are now just
like jungle villages.
The high rate of prostitution and teenage pregnancy in the towns of “Southern
Cameroons” is a direct consequence of the lack of industries, factories and other related
white-collar jobs. This has led to the decay of morals and loss of faith in even the Church
Institutions, which today is still the powerhouse of education and health in “Southern
Cameroons.” It came as no surprise that government announced that of all the cities in
Cameroun, Bamenda tops the list with the highest number of recorded Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) patients. If that thing called AIDS were manufactured in a
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laboratory for biological warfare, then we thank God that it never reached the hands of
Paul Biya and his government in time, else Bamenda will be no more.
The inhabitants of “Southern Cameroons” are not citizens of Cameroun but worse
than subjects, are treated as refugees who escaped hardship in Nigeria. If not of the fact
that “Southern Cameroons” soils are fertile, people would have been starving to death.
But they have problems of money, they truly do. The citizens, a majority of them are
poorer compared to citizens of other provinces of East Cameroon where modern roads
and other facilities exist everywhere, relatively speaking. Once you are in the “Southern
Cameroons” or West Cameroon especially in Bamenda, it is difficult to earn money, but
easy to spend, or without money you always remain indoors. You will end up graying
and wondering if that is all that life offers you. A graduate friend once wrote to me while
I was still in Nigeria about the worsening "Economic Crisis" and had this to say:
I am absolutely broke. You can imagine that since Wednesday last month
(and today is Wednesday again) I've not left the compound even once?
Besides, there is no job. One proprietor asked me to wait and see if he
could create one in his college for me to get a teaching job - financial
terms to be dictated by him. I have been waiting ever since and have now
been immune to waiting. I spend most of my time writing poems.... and
reading a few things. If it is possible you people should send me some
Naira (I hear Nigeria flows with Naira). With luck, (and one never knows)
one of them might pass for a five hundred francs CFA.... But for now,
Bamenda is really foreign to me.... I am estranged from it, dreading to
approach its brilliant and neon lights to be mirrored, x-rayed and zeroed as
a perfect three hundred and sixty degree thing: a naught!
If anyone read three of such letters, which I received almost every month about
life in “Southern Cameroons”, they could end up vomiting their intestines. As you move
from one letter to another, you will get an entirely different story, all having to do with
poverty and death. You cannot spend what is not earned. Things are made worse when
there are no prospects of ever having a job. My immunity to these letters is that I am now
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unshaken by what I know is the future. Fear has been destroyed in me, and the cause to
defend the territory, lifestyle and wishes of our people is my uncompromising task.
These days we are told of plans to build a deep-sea port in Kribi, Biya's Province
of origin. The Center Province of Yaounde and the South Province of Ebolowa have been
provided with almost everything from roads, dams, airports, (international), hospitals,
industries, plantations and a giant electricity project. The funds are from the Estate:
“Southern Cameroons”, the farm and the mining house of La Republique du Cameroun
(French Cameroun).
Almost two decades ago, government announced that cement factories would be
opened in Victoria and Bamenda. At Ngeme, in Victoria, (Cameroun authorities want us
to call it Limbe) on the road to SO.NA.RA a sign board was properly painted and pinned
on the road side indicating the site for a "future cement industry" so that “Southern
Cameroonians” who like hoping should live to dream that one day it shall come to pass as
reality. But that future could be the next thousand years!
With no agriculture, no industries, no road, no schools, “Southern Cameroonians”
are nothing but a lost people. But policy say "New Deal," "Rigor and Moralization" and
the taking of billions of francs CFA in loans to "promote agriculture which remains our
priority," and for the "promotion of loan scheme for small and medium-sized industries."
These are tilted and misinterpreted in terms of “Southern Cameroons”. Then
"privatization" comes in, but means that our corporations and plantations should be sold
to our ministers and directors, and to French people and the son of the late French
President François Mitterand - the misfit socialist. Privatization means that funds should
be embezzled from our corporations, banks and zeroing prospects for “Southern
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Cameroonians”. This is the hammer of National Integration, and it is hitting our people
unnecessarily hard.
But the Cameroun government is continuously interested in is tax money. You
will be taxed to death if you dare dream of opening a factory especially in “Southern
Cameroons”. People are beaten up and forced to buy tax tickets. If people knew that
government was using the tax revenue properly, as is the case with most Western nations
and the United States especially, why would there be any resistance to pay? Because
government is guilty of not serving the people, and knows too well where the funds go, it
then resort to the use of force to collect taxes. On one occasion, immediately following
the “Ghost Town” operations which characterized the opening phase of the attempts to
have the Winds of Change blow through Cameroun, the gates of Bamenda Urban Council
(BUC) Market were flung open as an attempt to force the commercial life to continue but
no shop owner or customer went in there. Because of perceptions of the government,
people speculated that the purpose of opening up the main market was to force people
who came to the market to pay taxes. Besides, the presence of Gendarmes, Police and
Army all made it too conspicuous and it is hard to deny the reasoning of the masses.
When you take a look straight into the eyes of many of those who stood in national colors
as armies or police, you see a feeling of mixed guilt and fear, for they too know that the
masses deserve better. Government corruption which directly and indirectly have stifled
the Cameroun economy is further promoted in the spheres of international business, thus
necessitating that we examine the activities of importers, exporters, custom officials and
the so-called forces of law and order who operate and complement these trends especially
at the Douala Sea Port.
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WHERE BANDITISM IS BRED: THE DOUALA SEA PORT
There are many economic and social benefits that accrue from the mere existence
of the Douala Sea Port to the Cameroun and Central African States. But this port is where
banditry is bred and bad policies executed in Cameroun. Most graduates of the School of
Administration and Magistracy (ENAM) who work as Customs Inspectors are doing a
bad job of what they were taught in school. When the Douala Sea Port was grounded in
response to the opposition parties' call for "Operation Ghost Town," this author was
happy and prayed unsuccessfully that it remained so until a sovereign national conference
was held. There are many sad and dirty things that take place at the port and which are a
typical reflection of the politics and the economic practices common in Cameroun as a
whole.
A week or two before the famous "Operation Ghost Town" of April 1991, Mr.
Vitung James and myself were at the port to clear a fully loaded thirteen-year-old truck in
our attempt to break the vicious circle of poverty by embracing international business.
The truck was imported from Germany with assorted used goods in it. It was an ordeal
and we ended up paying close to 3.5 million francs including "very necessary bribes."
The pending question was neither the evaluation of the goods, which accompanied the
truck, nor the truck itself. Charges were determined in a way hard to explain or
understand. There is nowhere else in this world (and this author will be glad to know
where else other than in Cameroun) where one could incur a similar expense except the
Douala Port where bribery and corruption are "legalized." A move from one custom
officer to another, then to a third will give you three contrasting charges. There were no
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standard procedures, and charges were done arbitrarily. There is no clearance code. Even
if there is one, it is neglected. Two months earlier we cleared a Mazda 626 for 500,000
francs. A week before we came for the truck, a friend had cleared a similar car (same
year and mark) for 800,000 francs CFA. Thanks to God, it was not for sale because no
one would have been able to buy, or even if they did, losses would have to be counted,
not profits.
The language for transactions at the port (written and spoken) is French except
personal contact with a few custom officers who are English-speaking.
Another
characteristic of the Douala Port is that many officers have their own clearance agents
whom if you do not pass through any of them before coming to their office, they would,
as the agent say, "sprain you with charges"—so there is bound to be too much
crookedness and wrangling. The only way to minimize this would have been to apply a
clearance code rigidly. But as we already know rigor died when President Biya
pronounced it.
The gendarmes at the Port are of no use, except that they work for some clique or
gangs. Just how they get information that this or that car is about leaving the port is what
beats ones imagination. You find them guarding it forty-eight hours before you complete
clearance formalities. They have terrible ways of squeezing money out of you. When you
protest, you will end up spending more days at the Port, thus risking more charges. Those
who are out to extract money from your regard protest action as either a sign that the
customer is more vulnerable to them or as is totally inexperienced. Either way, the
customer or amateur businessman is in no good position to attempt running away from
their traps. At the Douala Port, there is no straight talk or deal. You just have to wrangle
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or lose all your money to the crooks. Every officer, dealer or agent is immune to these
ways. So you have to lie, wrangle, bribe, woo, pretend to be friendly with everyone,
pretend to admire and love the woman officer, then cheat if you can, because, to be
honest, you must. That is business! Ask why things must be like this, you are asked in
turn if you don't know business. It is business you will be told in no uncompromising
way. You have to be "fast" and only "fast guys" prosper. It is scandalous, and by the time
you clear three of four cars or a load of goods you too are a "brethren," a bandit! And
who cares?
When we asked a few honest officers why the charges seemed haphazard, we
were informed that the National Treasury was running empty especially as the NPMB
was doomed to shut its doors. We were also told that attempts by President Biya to place
his best disciple, Professor Joseph Owona, in the lucrative ministry of telecommunication
had failed and the new Finance Minister was a shrewd financier and will not give in to
dirty tricks. A Beti meeting was held and instructions were sent to the Port authorities
demanding higher and random charges, which was now the only other alternative to raise
funds and to rescue the national treasury and the nation from total bankruptcy. This was
how close the government of President Paul Biya could have collapsed in 1991/91. It is
important to note that most of the top-ranking officers at the Port were Beti. It was feared
that if salaries of civil servants were not met in the next few months, it was likely that
they would join in the "Ghost Town Operation and the call for a sovereign national
conference. That would have meant the end of this vicious Paul Biya regime.
Another disturbing factor at the Port was the fact that vehicles leave Chad and
Central African Republic to carry goods destined for their countries. Economically, this
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has adverse effects on Cameroun transporters whose trucks stay unemployed, and hence
the chain effects transferred to drivers and their families. I was told that in the days of
Ahidjo, it was not so. Cameroun trucks had to deliver the goods at the borders. Today,
border towns are like shrines!
The truth is that Cameroun businessmen are in a mess. Not only are they
receiving banditry lessons at the Port, but also, profiteering has equally been snatched
from them: high charges, high taxes, high cost of fuel, bribes in cash and kind, and time
wasted all add up to accumulated losses. So the big question becomes this: who really
makes profit out of international business in Cameroun? The answer: the old crooks, the
old-timers—those who have been used to and become part of the Port family, period!
This, amongst other reasons is why prices of goods and services keep going up,
for if there were no profit there would be no business, especially given that the amount of
goods and services at the disposal of the public is limited by the activities and decisions
made by the tiny Port family. Summing it up, the words of one middleman at the Port,
who seemed to have understood our frustrations, said in French language, “everybody—
worker or businessman—doing business here, at the Douala Port, is a well bred bandit”!
Cameroun businessmen are badly trapped by the activities and social relations at the Port.
And in this process the Anglophone businessmen suffer most since their numbers at the
Port is negligible. Their situation is worsened by the fact that they need to master the
French language thoroughly. With the restricted business practices, life is made terrible
for the “Southern Cameroonians” in Cameroun’s lie of unity by the state of their roads.
THE STATE OF “SOUTHERN CAMEROONS”’ ROADS
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Much of the road network in “Southern Cameroons” is still the same as the
German and British left them, especially the bridges. The major roads that have been
tarred include the Douala-Limbe-Idenau Road, Mutengene-Buea and Buea-Kumba in the
Southwest Province, and in the Northwest Province, a small stretch from Santa to
Bamenda; or better still from Mbouda-to-Bamenda. Of recent, two other stretches were
tarred from Bamenda to Fundong and from Bamenda to Batibo—thanks to German and
Chinese economic aid, respectively. But even given the fact that most of the funds for the
came from Germany, the Cameroun authorities were very reluctant to chip in the little
10% that the project required for completion. Thanks too to threats from the masses of
the area that threatened to pull their daggers! The Kumba-Mamfe road project, supposed
to have started in 1985, has received the widest publicity that any project has ever got in
Cameroun. For over five years of singing the project over the national media, no work
began and even when it did, till date less than a third of the work is done.
An estimate of tarred roads in the Southwest Province could be 300 kilometers
and for the Northwest, about 120 kilometers, if we added the Bamenda-Fundong and
Bamenda-Batibo roads completed in 2002. But this total of 420 kilometers for all of
“Southern Cameroons” is far less than what government gets from this territory,
especially in comparison to less productive provinces. It is important to note that the
population of “Southern Cameroons” has almost a third (6 million) of Cameroun's
population (18 million). Revenue-wise, “Southern Cameroons” generates well over 70%
of Cameroun's foreign exchange revenue. Why then can the government not construct
even the most important revenue-generating roads such as the Mamfe-Ekok, KumbaMamfe, Mamfe-Bamenda, and the famous Bamenda Ring Roads? If “Southern
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Cameroonians” are true Camerounians, why must successive governments in Cameroun
neglect them in this manner?
While working with Reynolds Construction Company (RCC), a Jewish-American
Company in Bamenda in 1984/85, in preparation for the Agro-Pastoral Show and the
famous Bamenda Congress, I was an eyewitness to the frustration of the plan that was
drawn for the city of Bamenda. A master plan became a few narrow streets. Only the UpStation received the initial plan's construction. Streets that were supposed to be doubleways were reduced to single way (two-way traffic). These double-ways including the
pedestrian tracks were to be about 18 meters wide but were reduced to 9 meters. These
streets include the Metta-quarters street and SONAC street. Many streets were left
without tar because the budget was cut, and because there were a lot of bottlenecks and
embezzlement. Worse, the junction frequently needs a police Officer to serve as traffic
controller. A roundabout that was supposed to have been constructed at the Mrs. Ngeng
Junction was equally left out. This junction is now a death trap - a scene of many
accidents. The RCC Director denied a diversion of the Station Hill Road through Banjah,
and down to Nkwen, when government pressed that the road be surfaced with gravel and
not tarred. The RCC Director denied on the grounds that his company does not do dirty
jobs.
In the Southwest Province, the road network is a mockery for an oil-producing
province. In fact, the Kumba-Mamfe Road, which is still undergoing construction,
received the widest publicity that any project has ever got in Cameroun. Projects in the
South and Center Provinces are done without any publicity at all. The streets of the
"OPEC CITY" of Victoria are a shame compared to say, Port Harcourt, another oil-
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producing city in Nigeria. When shall Victoria receive the attention it deserves? The
Kumba-Mamfe-Ekok Road is among the roads in the country that gives the highest
revenue. It is important to note here, that at least sixty-five million francs are collected as
custom duties at Ekok alone each month. What excuse can government give for the
neglect of such a road? What fraction of the National Debt of 1050 billion francs CFA
(as of the 10th December 1989) was spent in “Southern Cameroons”, and on what
projects?
Foreign assistance that used to take care of farm to market roads, especially from
the Swiss Association for Technical Assistance (SATA) has been frustrated and their
workers have packed their bags and left Cameroun. So too, was the frustration of
WADA, PMO and of recent the North West Development Authority (MIDENO). In
1991, Biya promised that the construction of most “Southern Cameroons” roads would
take off that October. Prominent among them was the Tubah-Fundong Road, which was
financed by the Germans. The President had emphasized that he was personally going to
supervise the Bamenda-Batibo Road. But as we have seen already, it has taken ten years
for this promise to be fulfilled, and even so, the funds have come but from foreign
countries—which is why the Biya administration cannot claim to have delivered a
promise made.
We recall that in August 1991, while trying to escape the lack of popularity,
which is the killing effect of his regime, President Biya embarked on pushing the
municipal elections to 1994, and instead called for early presidential elections (for
October 11, 1992), which he rigged to his favor. As a strategy to win cheap popularity,
the road (Bamenda-Batibo), which he promised that he was personally going to
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supervise, was being re-surveyed, as early as 1993. One could clearly see the red pegs
indicating that soon construction works would begin.
All one can say for now is that “Southern Cameroonians” should not lose faith
when it concerns their dreams, wishes and aspirations for the Liberation of “Southern
Cameroons.” The Cameroun President has always been more interested in winning
elections for the CPDM and to maintain his grip on the estate—the “Southern
Cameroons.” The roads have not been constructed because government deems it not
necessary for “Southern Cameroonians” to be provided with good roads. If these roads
are ever constructed it will be due to frustration and perhaps because many deeds of the
Cameroun regime are now being exposed to thr rest of the world, and not because of
concern and love for the “Southern Cameroonians” as a part of Cameroun.
A COLONY WITHIN A COLONY'S COLONY: SONARA
The leaders of the mass movements which brought about juridical
independence in Africa, had inherited the totality of the colonial state they
had been fighting against. Taking over power did not signify any basic
change. Rather than question its relevance the colonial state was adopted
and legitimized.
A.M. Babu, (1990, 7) “The State and the Crisis in Africa” :
A second gear. Africa Event.
The National HydroCarbons Corporation (SNH) and the National Oil Refinery
Company or Societe National de Rafinement, SONARA, are a "Paradise" for
Francophones. Not only are the actual statistics of oil production a forbidden secret to
Anglophones, but employment opportunities are also denied them. It is equally
scandalous that Victoria - "The OPEC City" has no distinctive features to portray her
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riches. It does not get the position of priority for development even though Victoria leads
in revenue generation.
Was SONARA a misfit for the Cameroun economy from the beginning? The cost
of constructing this refinery more than tripled the most expensive on the African
continent. While the construction of refineries such as for Mauritania and Congo stood at
23 billion francs CFA, that of SONARA whose capacity is suspected to be double that of
Mauritania or Congo stood at about 72 billion francs CFA. Equally, production figures
reveal that the lies, embezzlement and fraud in SONARA started in the very first year.
The rounding up of production figures from 1,700,000 tones in 1979 to 8,600,000 tons in
1987 makes one to wonder what computerized machines do the drilling and refining of
oil to give us such well-rounded figures. There is no refinery in the world with such
neatly rounded figures continuously for ten years.
Some two people better understand oil politics in Cameroun: Paul Biya and the
former SNH Director, Jean Assoumou, now of late. Paul Biya is quoted as saying:
We use oil revenue to balance the budget; we equally use them to
development sectors of the national economy, agriculture in particular,
and industry. If the accounts of oil revenue were not immediately included
in the National Budget, this was for technical reasons.... But we will
continue to discuss the best ways of presenting the receipts, which are
public receipts and belong to the entire Camerounian nation.12
What economics could this be? Compte hors budgets—Kept or counted off the
budget, they say in French corporate management strategy, perhaps to make
embezzlement of the proceeds from oil easy? What allowance was made by Parliament
for pumping of oil money into budgets for agriculture and industry, and if so how much?
What technical reasons still forbade Camerounians from reading statistics of the Oil
Corporation? Are these Technical discussions held in order to determine what has to be
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published and what to hide? Only a foolish government thinks that it can get away with
such tricks.
The story of SONARA as told by Ntemfac Ofege and Charlie Ndi Chia in Post
Watch Magazine, a monthly publication in Cameroun, is one that should have drawn
“Southern Cameroons”' elite into talks on how to bring government to account or lead the
population into badly needed rebellion. The story reveals only one thing: that SONARA
is owned by Paul Biya who has colonized “Southern Cameroonians” to extract the "Black
Gold" from her soils. The story tells us how job opportunities are almost exclusively for
Francophones. This is better explained by the sad case of Larry Tchombe, whom Biya
and Assoumou implored to abandon his close to sixteen million francs annual income in a
US corporation, only to return home and be unemployed for five years (1986-1991),
neglected, lied to, and finally silently rejected because he was Anglophone/Bamileki
origin. Post Watch lamented that, "the opportunity his own country refused him was
finally offered by foreigners who realized his professional worth for what it is,"13 when
the London based GECO SCHLUMBERGER Oil Company employed Larry.
The SONARA story is painful but our parents and elites alike have kept silent and
are pretending not to see these scandals. This makes us to wonder aloud why God had to
take Bobe Jua away from us. SONARA is a Paradise in riches and beauty all right, but it
is a colony of the evil intentions—a shame. It was with such shame and pains that Paddy
Mbawa lamented that,
President Paul Biya got his passport to make billions on November 6,
1982 when Ahmadou Ahidjo was undercut by a Mitterand plot that faked
ill-health on him. The real underground battle.... was the fight for the
control of Cameroun's black gold (oil) which the socialist Mitterand
thought Ahidjo's Gaulist lies did not provide sufficient room for them to
get adequate access to the oil wealth. So you can see how Ahidjo
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maneuvered the Anglophones and in turn Mitterand also out-maneuvered
him out of power to get a real stooge in his place.14
Even though oil politics seem to be taking a better turn given foreign weariness
with the way the Biya regime has been handling oil revenue, Camerounians still harbor
great doubts. The border conflict with Nigeria over the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsular has
shifted oil exploration away from that border towards the coastal regions between Douala
and kribi, and towards Chad Republic. The foreign concerns led Africa Confidential to
observe and conclude that,
Cleaning up the oil sector is at the center of the battle for the country’s
economic future… Biya has been told unequivocally by Paris and the
International Monetary Fund that finance towards the US $ 1,800 million
cost of the, Camerounian part of the oil pipeline from Chad will be
jeopardized unless there are improvements in the accountability and
management of the state-owned Societe Nationale des Hydrocabures… At
stake for Cameroun are revenues of nearly $500 million, and 5000—
10000 new jobs in an economy, which according to the World Bank, has
declined more rapidly than almost any other over the past decade.15
Foreign interference is intended to curb the embezzling habit of the Biya regime
and to also reduce the political control over the Hydrocarbon accounts. It is also intended
to ensure that the SNH Corporation be privatized. But even with this, Africa Confidential
was able to observe and lamented, “Biya still maintains close control of the SNH staff
appointment…. Suspicion that unofficial oil sales continue and that some revenue still
disappears into the Patronage System have been fueled by apparent discrepancies
between official statements and export figures received by the IMF.”16
CONCLUSION:
Economic Reforms can never precede Political Reforms and be meaningful—
especially in Cameroun, which has a record of corruption. This record became even
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glaring, when in 1998 a survey of 85 nations rated Cameroun as the most corrupt, with a
score of 1.4 out of a possible 10. The State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina,
USA, praised Denmark, which according to The State, is ridiculed in Shakespeare’s
“Hamlet” when Shakespeare lamented, “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark.”17
Today, while Denmark ranks first, Cameroun, which in the time of Shakespeare was
probably made up of many isolated kingdoms with very high moral standing, has taken
over as the lament that used to be for Denmark can now only rightly mean; “something is
rotten in Cameroun.” Even with the shortcomings of the survey, there is every indication
that the stuff stinking in Cameroun today is political corruption, which has been
spearheaded and sponsored by the government of President Paul Biya.
Until the political machinery is changed, and replaced with leaders and
institutions that respect and practice checks and balances, one would not be wrong to
assert that Cameroun will rot into untold chaos. But if genuine political reform does take
place, then the impact of measured Economic Reforms can be felt and amended
appropriately. Until this happens Camerounians would still be trapped, remain a badly
wounded people, while their hearts continue to breed stories of untold miseries and
laments, as the Cameroun economy continues to be mismanaged. For my fellow
“Southern Cameroonians” or Cameroun “Anglophones”, they will continue to live as
"parasites without power,” unless they recover their lost identity at all cost.
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