Recently in Tiko, a city in the south-west region which houses Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) plantations, Moukondo Mayor, Daniel Ngande, did not mince words with the public agricultural company which operates gigantic banana, oil palm and rubber tree plantations in the south-west.

According to the municipal leader, the camps in which the employees have been living “have not been maintained in decades,” and look more like “open prisons” where living conditions are significantly below average and do not reflect “the billions that these workers have been producing for the company” for several years now.

A banana production partner of the American company, Del Monte, the CDC is the second largest banana producer in Cameroon behind PHP, a company run by the Marseille fruit company. The CDC is also the second largest employer after the Cameroonian State, with a total of 22,000 employees, compared to 200,000 in public service.