Remove privatisation tag on CDC – Trade Unionist warns government

BY ATIA TILARIOUS AZOHNWI

Cameroon Headlines, Limbe, May 5 – Charles Mbide Kude, General Secretary of Fako Agricultural Workers Union (FAWU) has urged government to remove the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, from the list of corporations earmarked for privatization.

He was speaking at the Manga Williams Avenue in Limbe, May 1, during an official ceremony to commemorate the 128^th edition of the International Labour Day.

According to Mbide, it is unacceptable to have Cameroon’s biggest employer after the state on a list of companies to be privatized.

Charles Mbide Kude

“We are already witnessing an international financial crisis of enormous proportion and with the globalization of the world’s economy; the negative effects are already visible,” he said.

Given that rubber and palm oil are among the primary products of the CDC and that these products are not trading well on the world market, Mbide says putting the company in such an unstable state will worsen matters.

“The market price of rubber is on a downward spiral and if the crisis persists, the economic circumstances of the workers will worsen. Our Government is helplessly watching the erosion of our economy,” he lamented.

Mbide then made a clarion call to government: “It is on this premise that we are once again calling on the Government to remove CDC on the list of Companies listed for privatization. This Corporation is the only existing Patrimony of the English Speaking Part of Cameroon and its continuous existence as an ongoing concern is closely tied with our Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage. This privatization tag is suffocating the growth of this giant Argo-industry.”

The Trade Unionist said the sufferings that followed the privatization of the Tea sector are yet to be forgotten and that if CDC is privatized, Anglophones will not forgive the government.

“The reasons put forward by Government for the privatization of CDC are already redundant coupled with the total failure in the privatization deal in the Tea Sector of this Corporation; it would be catastrophic to contemplate another disastrous privatization of any of the remaining crops namely Rubber, Oil Palm and Banana,” Mbide noted.

With government effort now concentrated on the agricultural sector to take the country to emergence in 2035, Mbide said it will be suicidal for the biggest ago-industrial outfit to be privatized.

“If we are serious with our dream of Cameroon becoming an Emerging Nation by 2035, the Government should remove the privatization chain from the neck of the CDC and we are sure that there shall be a positive turn around in the fortunes of the corporation. This will undoubtedly transform the desperate Plantation Workers living conditions,” the FAWU boss said.