Re: Echoes From Panel Discussion

What you all need to be doing is allow those people to conduct their business and stop bugging them with senseless drama. If there is anyone that you have to fight, it's the government of Cameroon. Leave the businessman out of it. That area of Cameroon has no industry to talk of. Your fight is with the government of Cameroon to ensure that citizens from that part of Cameroon get jobs and at decent wages.

You can't fight the government and you pick on an American entrepreneur because you know Americans are taught to care for the grievances of others. If this were a French investor or a Chinese investor, this matter would not be where it is today.

Finally, it's about time for Cameroon to have both its own cultural revolution and an agrarian/land revolution. We need to begin taxing lands held by customary title holders. That way, they will release the land rather than sit on it and give senseless grief to investors.

In fact, any future Southern Cameroons will have to address/change land tenure in that country. The current system is archaic and often leads to quarrels. Just look at what's going on with the University of Bamenda over land matters. It's just absurd. We need to begin taxing landholders, especially undeveloped lands. Very good source of municipal/community money if you ask me.


On Monday, February 25, 2013 10:08:01 PM UTC-5, somamo wrote:

Dear All,

 It is over a week since I forwarded my invitation to the first ever international Panel Discussion on the Social and Ecological threats being posed by Herakles Farms; organized by  Greenpeace USA in Washington D: to all Cameroonian e-groups that I belonged.

 The Panel Discussion which took place on Tuesday February 19, 2013 was well attended but only a handful of us were from Cameroon, even as the Greater Washington Area is fondly called Cameroon in USA due to thousands of Cameroonians living within the area.

 The four presentations were educative, informative, revealing and sometimes disturbing and saddening. Attached are copies of two presentations which any right thinking Cameroonian in particular and African in general should afford to download, read and digest because they embody all descriptions I have outlined above and answers some of the nagging questions we have being asking.

 These links are good readings.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/nasako-besingi/land-grabbing-looms-plantation_b_2744015.html

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/media-center/reports/Herakles-Farms-in-Cameroon/

After reading them, the legal minds in these forums should tell us why any foreign company operation in Cameroon should be above the law of our homeland?

Our economists should tell us why the Cameroon Development corporation with plantations covering 41000 hectares of land area should employ 157000 workers and Herakles Farms with over 73000 Hectares should employ just 7500 workers?

 

If you do the arithmetic, dividing the number of hectares each company covers by the number of the workers employed or to be employed, you will find out that while one person who is employed by CDC will have to work on about 2.5 hectares, Herakles Farms will be employing one person to work on about 10 hectares and our people call that employment. Remember, Herakles Farms will exempted from paying any form of taxes to the Cameroon government for 10 consecutive years.

A 10 hectares family farm will certainly employ more people and generate more money annually than the salary of a laborer working on 10 hectares on Herakles Farms palm plantations.

It is amazing that while the company that makes sugar in Cameroon pays over 6000 CFA francs to the government Cameroon for each hectare of the sugar cane plantation east of the Mungo and farmers  around Panja pay up to 100000 CFA francs per hectare annually to their landlords, the government of Cameroon is willing to  mortgage the ancient tropical rainforest in the Southwest Region for as less as 250 CFA  francs per hectare annually, for 99 years with little or no consultation with  the indigenous people of the area affected. To me it is a troubling palaver.

If the government of the triangle called Cameroon tailored the land tenure in 1972, that any land without a land certificate belongs to her, she should remember that before the colonial master fused the different clans, kingdoms and fondoms to call it Kamerun, Cameroon and Cameroun, which became independent on January 1, 1960 and October 1 1961 respectively, the indigenous people have being living on the land for centuries, as such their rights should respected.

If I may ask, how many native lands have land certificates in Cameroon? As per the Southern Cameroons land tenure which was abrogated in 1972, all land belong to natives of area. And the government has to consult with the native if they want to put any land into use.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ambasbay" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ambasbay+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.