Cameroon’s second largest employer, the Cameroon Development Corporation, says it may be forced to downsize because thousands of workers have fled fighting between security forces and separatists seeking an independent English-speaking state.

The atmosphere is quiet at the workers’ residential area of the Cameroon Development Corporation in Illoani, a village of about 5,000 people. But it’s not a holiday. Many workers at the CDC, a state-run agro-industrial company in the English-speaking southwest, have simply fled.

Armed separatists seeking an independent English-speaking state in April killed a Cameroonian soldier in the area. The attack touched off sporadic clashes that have since led thousands of villagers to flee the area, including more than 2,000 of the CDC’s 20,000 workers.

54-year-old William Kangue, a father of three, said he abandoned his job and fled the area because of ongoing clashes.

“The secessionist guys attacked in broad daylight,” he explained. “There were bullets flying everywhere, flying over my house. People got shot, civilians must [flee] especially. Many people have gone away from their communities and so their farms have been abandoned.”

The military on Sunday said separatists attacked at least nine villages in the southwest over the weekend, killing a policeman and four soldiers. More than 200 separatist fighters clashed with the military at Wotutu village, according to a military communique, home to hundreds of CDC workers.

The military’s report could not be independently verified.

Separatists seeking to establish an English-speaking republic within Cameroon consider the state-run CDC a legitimate target. The company’s vehicles, tractors, buildings and warehouses have been torched and some of their staff kidnapped.

Despite ongoing violence, some locals refused to run away.

Fifty-seven-year old CDC nurse Suzan Nenda said they have received threats from separatists to stop working and leave the area. But she rejects leaving the village of her birth.

“If death comes, then it is God’s making that I have to die,” she said. “People are not living in their houses. Most of them are in the bushes. Some of the houses are burned, some of the villages are burned. People don’t have places to stay so they have decided to stay in the bush. They build huts in the bush and stay there.”

The CDC runs banana, palm oil, and rubber plantations in Cameroon’s troubled southwest. But its Director General Franklin Njie said only one of its 11 estates is functioning normally.

“Most of our units, estates, oil mills, factories are shut down completely while some are operating timidly,” he said. “It is the only Debuncha palms estate that is operating normally, but amidst threats. Since the first of July 2018, the banana sector has been hit. The pack house [warehouse] was attacked and set ablaze. Till today, no work is going on.”

Njie said CDC’s gross revenue has dropped by 75 percent. He said if the attacks continue, they may be forced to lay off as many as 5,000 workers.

The unrest in Cameroon began in November 2016, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers protested being forced to use French in schools and courts and called for greater autonomy. The government crackdown that followed only encouraged separatists to take up arms.

Authorities say at least 300 people, including soldiers and police, have been killed in the fighting since.

Culled from the VOA

Eritrea’s national airline has made its first commercial flight in two decades to Addis Ababa, the capital of neighboring Ethiopia, the latest step in a surprise peace process between the former foes that began just two months ago.

An Eritrean Airlines plane carrying the country’s transport and tourism ministers on Saturday landed at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, where it was welcomed by senior Ethiopian officials.

Ethiopia’s own flag carrier, Ethiopian Airlines, had made its first commercial flight in the other direction, landing in Asmara International Airport on July 18.

Once a province of Ethiopia, Eritrea seceded in 1993 after a long independence struggle. A row over the demarcation of the shared border triggered a brutal 1998-2000 conflict that left 80,000 people dead before evolving into a bitter cold war.

But in a surprise move in June, Ethiopia’s new reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced he would finally accept a 2002 United Nations-backed border demarcation, paving the way for peace between the two nations.

He then paid a historic visit to Eritrea, during which he and President Isaias Afwerki declared an official end to the war. Afwerki reciprocated with a state visit to Ethiopia just days later.

Embassies have since been reopened and phone lines between the two countries have also been restored.

Eritrean Airlines currently has only one leased airplane.

“The new route will expand existing regional flights of the airline to Cairo, Khartoum, Jeddah and Dubai,” Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebre Meskel said on Twitter.

Last month, Ethiopian Airlines chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam revealed his state-owned company was in talks to buy a stake in Eritrean Airlines as part of efforts to boost commercial ties between the two countries, which were once each others’ biggest trading partners.

Ethiopia’s flag carrier is the most profitable in Africa and in recent years has been buying shares in other African airlines.

(Source: AFP)

The crisis in anglophone Cameroon is damaging the Southwest Region’s economy, with palm oil plantations closing and the cocoa trade tumbling, an NGO report said Wednesday. The Southwest Region faces almost daily clashes between the army and separatists in a conflict that originated mainly in Cameroon’s second anglophone area, the Northwest Region.

The state-run palm oil company Pamol has deserted some of its plantations, and cocoa and coffee production has stopped because villages have abandoned their crops, according to the Cameroon NGO Human Is Right. Sources at the private firm Telcar Cocoa, a market leader, told the NGO that insecurity in the region had caused an 80 percent fall in cocoa trade. Company officials should negotiate with fighters to secure their facilities in remote villages, the sources said. Meanwhile rubber and oil plantations have been abandoned in two of Southwest Region’s six districts, Ndian and Meme.

The crisis has led to a 70 percent increase in unemployment in the agricultural sector, the report found. Both the Southwest Region and the Northwest Region were once under British rule before joining francophone Cameroon in 1961 after independence. For years, resentment built among anglophones, fostered by perceived marginalisation in education, the judiciary and the economy at the hands of the French-speaking majority. Demands for greater autonomy were rejected by 85-year-old President Paul Biya, in power for more than 35 years, leading to an escalation that saw the declaration of the self-described “Republic of Ambazonia” in October last year.

www.vanguardngr.com

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari said on Wednesday the country will ‘sign up soon’ to a $3 trillion African free-trade agreement.

Nigeria is one of Africa’s two largest economies, the other being South Africa. Buhari’s government had refused to join a continental free-trade zone established in March, on the grounds that it wishes to defend its own businesses and industry.

The administration later said it wanted more time to consult business leaders. “In trying to guarantee employment, goods and services in our country, we have to be careful with agreements that will compete, maybe successfully, against our upcoming industries,” Buhari told a news conference during a visit by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“I am a slow reader, maybe because I was an ex-soldier. I didn’t read it fast enough before my officials saw that it was all right for signature. I kept it on my table. I will soon sign it.”

Ramaphosa condemns xenophobic attacks on Nigerians

Earlier Ramaphosa told a business conference in Abuja that South Africa saw huge benefits from the continental free trade deal and that a draft agreement relating to the movement of people was being reviewed.

In his first visit to Nigeria since becoming South Africa’s president in February, Ramaphosa said he was seeking greater collaboration between the two countries.

He condemned xenophobic attacks on foreigners in South Africa, including Nigerians, against a backdrop of economic hardship and soaring unemployment.

“This is a working visit to come to Nigeria and I’ve made it a specific issue that I want relations with Nigeria to improve exponentially,” Ramaphosa told the conference.

Africa’s big economies

Nigeria and South Africa have the two largest economies in Africa. Along with Angola, they make up about three-fifths of sub-Saharan Africa’s annual economic output.

Both countries have been hit hard in recent years by low commodity prices that slowed growth, cut government revenues and weakened their currencies. But each has emerged from recession, largely because of a rebound in commodity prices.

The growth of the two economies played a large part in the World Bank’s forecast that sub-Saharan Africa’s economy will grow by 3.1 percent this year, up from 2.6 percent in 2017.

African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)

The continental free-trade zone, which encompasses 1.2 billion people, was initially joined by 44 countries in March. South Africa signed up earlier this month. Six countries, including Nigeria, are yet to sign the agreement.

Economists point to the continent’s low level of intra-regional trade as one of the reasons for Africa’s enduring poverty and lack of a strong manufacturing base.

African Union officials said countries that have signed the agreement will need to submit a schedule of tariffs by December, adding that they expect intra-African trade to double over the next four years once tariffs are reduced.

REUTERS

The economy of the troubled English-speaking regions in northwest and southwest Cameroon is slowly grinding to near halt as the long-drawn out security crisis is forcing local businessmen to put their safety over commerce. It is also driving away many of the biggest traders originally from neighboring Nigeria who have traditionally run key markets in towns around the regions.

The crisis, which started as a modest industrial strike action by English-speaking lawyers and teachers against the imposition of French, has spiraled into an unprecedented internal armed conflict. There are fears the country could slide into civil war as the conflict persists. In recent months, frequent clashes between government forces and separatists seeking to establish a state they would call ‘Ambazonia’ has left scores of civilians dead, including women and children.

The recurrent deadly confrontations have provoked mass movement of people. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that no fewer than 160,000 people have been internally displaced, while a further over 21,000 have crossed to next door Nigeria as refugees.

In a bid to express dissent activists have instituted a civil disobedience action called “ghost town”; which grounds daily activities every Monday, with extensions to some other key days. Traders who spoke to Quartz see the operation as economically damaging as at least one full business day is lost each week since late 2016. Those who dare defy the order risk facing the wrath of unknown arsonists who have burned down shops in nearby towns.

Restrictions of the movement of people and goods have further worsened the already deteriorating situation for businessmen. Armed secessionists called “Amba Boys” mount intermittent road blocks on-and-off along major highways in the troubled area. The government has also had to officially close its western borders with Nigeria on at least two occasions, while dusk to dawn curfews instituted by some local administrative authorities have simply helped to worsen the precarious situation.

The conflict has also been marked by the disruption of essential utility services, especially the supply of electricity and network interruptions to telecommunication services. Internet services were cut off for 136 days between October 2017 and February this year.

Nigerian trade

Kumba, the economic hub of the South West region, located some 70 kilometers from the city of Buea, has a sizable Nigerian business community who are principally engaged in trade; selling motor spare parts, liquor, electronics, fabrics, cosmetic products, among others. Like in Nigeria itself, many of the traders are of the Igbo ethnic group and their neighborhood in Kumba is named “Igbo Quarter”.

Igbo traders are a fixture in markets across western Africa and beyond with key networks at home and even out to China, a primary source of many goods they sell. Most of the Nigerian traders in Kumba have been doing business in the town in the last two decades. But many are now considering leaving for both safety and business reasons. Similar to Cameroon, some ethnic Igbo political activists have over the last two years been reviving a call for the separate Biafra state to be carved out of Nigeria’s eastern region close to Cameroon. When this happened in earnest 51 years it sparked the Nigerian civil war which eventually led to the loss of well over a million lives.

Many Nigerian traders are not keen to wait to find out if the Cameroonian troubles eventually subside.

Fabric traders, Mr & Mrs Okezie, are preparing to return to their hometown in Abia state in Nigeria. The husband says it has been difficult to get supplies from Nigeria over the last three months, while the whereabouts of most of their customers who took wares on credit are unknown. “Like some of our other brothers, we just have to return home and see what life has to offer there,” he said. “Things are really tough here now and we see no way forward.”

Another Nigerian businessman who asked not to be named given the security uncertainty, said “the business environment has become extremely hostile.” He said sales had dropped off and he no longer felt safe being in Kumba. “On at least two occasions, Amba Boys have visited me requesting for groundnuts [cartridges for Dane guns] or money to support the struggle.

Kevin Ndubuisi, president of the over 250-man strong Imo State Union in Kumba says his Nigerian compatriots have been returning in their numbers. “But no one tells you when he is returning. Some have just gone back as though they were going for a business trip but never returned.”

Source: Quartz

Cocoa prices in Cameroon are surging as farmers in the biggest producing regions flee an escalating conflict between government forces and a movement that wants independence for English-speaking territories.

Cameroon produced an estimated 246,000 metric tons of cocoa in the season through September 2017, accounting for about 5.2 percent of global output, according to data from the International Cocoa Organization.

Source: Bloomberg

Cameroon is urging children in the eastern part of the country to stop leaving school to work in the gold industry. The campaign was launched after a report said 74 people have been killed in mine accidents this year, a majority of them of school age.

A group of five Cameroonian teenagers and a Central African refugee are digging through a river bed, searching for gold. One carries a newborn on her back as she turns over the dirt and mud, looking for the precious nuggets.

These kids, ranging in age from 11 to 15, are some of children who have dropped their studies to dig for gold.

The youth say Chinese companies pay them a dollar a day for their labor and a bonus if they find gold.

Government authorities have told locals to stop digging in the area. But the need for income is so high that many ignore the order, including refugees who leave their camps and parents whose kids should be in school.

Yves Bertrand Alienou is a senior divisional officer in the Lom and Djerem administrative unit. He is going village-to-village asking locals to leave gold mines alone and for parents to return their child miners to their studies.

“The first message is that of sympathy from the public authorities that we represent, but most especially we want to ask them to stop exploiting in this dangerous area. As they all know and have seen for themselves it is very dangerous,”

A report published in July by the government and private researchers said 50 people were killed mining for gold in eastern Cameroon last year. That number has jumped to over 70 in just the first half of 2018.

In one of the worst incidents, nine Cameroonians and Central African refugees were killed when a gold mine collapsed on them in the town of Ngoura last December.

Michel Pilo, chief of Mali village, says the Chinese mining companies are not only exploiting their natural resources but also their children.

He says the Chinese companies don’t build any schools for the children.And when the child miners dig the water beds, contaminating their only source of drinking water, the Chinese refuse to provide alternative sources such as constructing wells. He says many people have become sick from drinking contaminated water and others have died in landslides.

Vincent Atangana, a Cameroonian official at Chinese mining firm EXXIL, blames parents for allowing their kids to work in the firms. He argues Chinese mining has helped develop the area.

He says many houses are being constructed with modern materials.Several years ago, fuel was sold in cans but today, says Atangana, there are fuel stations.He says these developments are coming when gold mining is still at a working stage -they will do even more when it reaches the industrial level.

Alienou says the government has warned parents and instructed Chinese mining firms to stop hiring school-age laborers. Butwith high demands for gold from China and jobs in eastern Cameroon, there is little enforcement.

Source: VOA

The Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC has executed an immediate shut down of 8 of its Estates due to increased insecurity. Cameroon Concord News gathered that these estates include Mbonge, Illoani, Mukonje, Mondoni, Tombel, Malende and Meanja. Our source who is a management staff also hinted that the affected workers would be paid 50% of their salary.

The Director of Human Resources who spoke to our undercover reporter confirmed the company’s decision and further pointed out that the agro industrial plant may be close down completely if the fighting intensifies in Southern Cameroons.

CDC is the second largest employer after the CPDM government. Yaoundé recently ordered an investigation into the management of CDC and reportedly bailout the corporation with the sum of 90 billion FCFA.  Insiders say the Estates will remain shut down for as long as security procedures are not in place for the public and CDC personnel. The shutdown is likely to be indefinite as the crisis in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is showing no signs of ending.

The shutdown will have a direct impact on the crisis noted a highly placed Cameroon government official contacted by our correspondent in Limbe. The management immediately told the government of its decision to close down some Estates earlier this week. Since the conflict started, the Yaounde government has made one mistake after another. In January 2017, it arrested and jailed Southern Cameroonian leaders who had called for a federal system that would guarantee that the people take ownership of their own development projects.

Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and Mr. Mancho Bibixy were captured and hastily taken to Yaounde in the belief that the population’s anger would be doused. This only inflamed Southern Cameroonians, and things actually took a turn for the worse.

To ensure that its atrocities in the region were not captured on video, the government cut off Internet and other communication systems. In the process, many businesses were killed and the unemployment rate in the region reached alarming rates. Silicon Mountain, a hub for many start-ups in the South West regional headquarters of Buea, was put out of business. The disconnection of the Internet created many Internet refugees and ever since, Silicon Mountain has become a thing of the past.

Rather than seek to appease a people who have been hurting for decades, the Yaounde government proceeded to employing tricks in the hope that it will come out of the conflict victorious. After more than six months in jail for no crime committed, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and others were released, while Mr. Mancho Bibixy was left in jail. He was later convicted of many flimsy crimes, including terrorism.

Once the leaders were released in 2017, the ruling party’s propaganda immediately kicked in. It portrayed the releases as an act of magnanimity on the president’s part. But the tricks of the past could no longer work the miracles they had produced in the past. The people were sick and tired of the government’s manipulation and trickery. Southern Cameroonians no longer want to have anything to do with their unfortunate past. The calls for federalism have now developed into independence and secession.

By Tina Nene Nganda

Cameroon Concord News Group

The port of Douala, the largest in Central Africa, this week launched an operation to remove wrecks of old boats which hamper its functionality and competitiveness.

“At the operational level, the impacts are even heavier because we are losing docks that should bring us money. It is on the dock that the boat comes to dock to allow exchanges,” said Georges Menye the project manager.

This operation is the first “in 33 years”, according to Cyrus Ngo’o, general manager of the autonomous port of Douala. “The port, the Wouri River is full of a hundred wrecks and we have decided to start with the most dangerous. The first twenty-five wrecks that impede the operation of the port are those that constitute this phase of the project,“ said Mr. Ngo’o.

Fear of pollution

Most of the boats whose frames have been abandoned in the port of Douala are over half a century old and are feared to contain asbestos.

“The majority of these boats are over 50 years old. However, nearly 20 years ago, the construction of boats with asbestos was stopped. Asbestos that has become toxic to humans,” worried Mr. Georges Menye, the project manager.

This contract for the withdrawal of abandoned boats was awarded to an Italian company, Bonifacio, for a sum of 4.7 billion CFA francs (just over 7 million euros).

Work to remove the first 25 wrecks will take eight months.

The main outlet for landlocked Central African countries such as Chad and the Central African Republic, the port of Douala is characterised by its dilapidated infrastructure, congestion, corruption and administrative hassles.

More than 95% of Cameroon’s port traffic passes through Douala.

In February, the French tropical timber trader Rougier designated the “chronic congestion” of the port of Douala as one of the causes of its bankruptcy.

“The bankruptcy of the Rougier group could not be the responsibility of the port of Douala, where the logistics operations of foreign trade are carried out normally”, then reacted Cyrus Ngo’o.

Source: Africa News

Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea have reopened their border six months after it was sealed to stop the movement of armed groups that fought to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has led Equatorial Guinea since 1979. Strict controls remain on movement across the border.

It is a busy Wednesday morning at the main bus station in Ebebiyin, a north eastern town in the part of Equatorial Guinea that is on the African mainland. Business persons from neighboring Cameroon and Gabon are transporting goods to and from the tiny central Africa state. Ephraim Mukwah, a 43-year old Cameroon-born truck driver, said they are happy Equatorial Guinea officials have finally authorized them to have access to Cameroon.

He said people are very grateful and happy as the town’s taxi business is picking up and buses and trucks can now freely circulate between Cameroonian border towns right to Bata, the economic capital city of Equatorial Guinea.

Cameroon supplies food items, building material and motor spare parts to Equatorial Guinea while Equatorial Guinea delivers beverages, and vegetable oil to Cameroon.

Forty-year old Equatorial Guinean business woman Rosaline Avah said there has been a huge movement of goods and people to and from Ebebiyin within the past two weeks after Equatorial Guinea officials announced that the borders had been completely reopened. She said she is just returning from the first business trip to Cameroon in five months.

She said they went to the Cameroonian border town of Kiossi with nine trucks of wine, whiskies and vegetable oil on Friday last week with the hope of returning after two days. Instead, she said, they spent three additional days waiting for farm produce they bought from Cameroon to supply to their clients in the Equatorial Guinea border town of Ebebiyin and the country’s economic capital Bata. She said she is happy they are doing brisk business after a long period of no trading.

Rosaline, however, complained that the military checked them seven times between Bata and Ebebiyin, with all passengers asked to get out of their vehicles and pass through security checks. She said some people who did not have all of their identification papers were arrested.

Equatorial Guinea closed its border with Cameroon on December 24, following a failed coup attempt in the oil-rich Central African state.

On December 29, Equatorial Guinea’s leadership said its forces had arrested a number of people moving towards the Cameroon border in possession of rocket launchers, rifles and a stockpile of ammunition. Officials alleged the group had accumulated the weapons to destabilize the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled the Spanish-speaking country since 1979 and is the longest-serving leader in Africa. His critics have historically characterized his government as authoritarian and corrupt.

Cameroon said it arrested 40 heavily armed men on its side of the border and had strengthened security along the 290-kilometer boundary.

The security measure, traders said, crippled economic activities.

Handerson Quetong Kongeh, the highest-ranking government official in Ntem valley Cameroon border administrative unit, said the decision to reopen the border was taken following a series of meetings in which both countries agreed the threat to Obiang Nguema’s presidency had passed.

“Progressively serenity, peace, order and discipline reigns along the borders. So the Guinean authorities have judged for themselves that it was necessary to relax the exchanges and we think that if it continues in this way, the barriers will be completely uplifted,” said Kongeh.

Two months ago, the border was opened only two days every week and movement was under strict control of the Equatorial Guinea military. But today, movement is allowed daily, with impromptu and spontaneous checks by the country’s police force.

Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea are members of the six-member Economic Community of Central African States, CEMAC.

Obiang, who celebrated his 76th birthday on Tuesday, was elected to a fifth seven-year term in 2016 in polls the opposition said were rigged in his favor. Equatorial Guinea, a former colony of Spain, is a tiny oil rich state with 1.2 million people.

Source: VOA