(Business in Cameroon) - Like its banana sector, Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC)’s palm oil sector has started a downward spiral. According to figures published on July 5, 2019, CDC produced only 2,100 tons out of the 17,400 tons production target for H1, 2019.

The corporation’s management indicates that this is due to the insecurity created by anglophone separatists. Because of this insecurity, only three of its seven oil palm plantations are operational, workers having deserted the remaining ones.

Authorized sources reveal that those three plantations are also not operating at their full capacity. In addition, CDC sometimes processes its palm oil at the production plants of Socapalm, another operator in the sector.

16 workers killed

Since the start of the Anglophone crisis in 2017, CDC has been going through hard times. Since September 2018, it disappeared from the registry of Cameroonian banana exporters because some of its banana plantations have been converted into training grounds by separatists. They do not hesitate to brutalize or even kill workers stubborn enough to come to work.

According to the high management, since the start of this crisis, 16 workers have been killed while 98 have been injured during the separatists’ attacks.

Apart from these human losses, CDC is also financially affected. Its management indicates that it needs XAF29 billion to recover.

In detail, Franklin Ngoni Njie, its general director explains, XAF7 billion is needed in the rubber sector, XAF14 billion in the banana sector and XAF7 billion for the palm oil sector. The remaining XAF1 billion is to be used to pay salary arrears.

Brice R. Mbodiam