Tche Irène MORIKANG
26 March 2008
The fight against illegal exploitation of Cameroon's forest has intensified. In less than two months, the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, Prof. Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, has taken concrete actions against some 43 timber companies.
The most recent decision by Minister Ngolle Ngolle was on 20th March 2008 when he suspended 16 logging companies from carrying out forest exploitation activities through out the national territory. Those sanctioned failed to show up at the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife to justify the origin of their wood seized at the Port of Douala in October 2007. The move comes barely a month after a similar one taken last February 15, 2008 suspending 27 forestry enterprises for the same motive. 14 other enterprises, who have been convened for a working session with the Forestry and Wildlife boss, are on the hold. They might also be slammed sanctions linked to their nonconformist activities in forestry exploitation; activities which infringe on the option to manage our forest durably.
That the Minister of Forestry can hit hard on these "untouchables" of the forestry sector is laudable. The courageous move paves the way for transparency in a domain where corruption and defiance of the law have found fertile grounds. Most of the "almighty" logging companies have so far functioned in complete arrogance and disregard of the forestry law in the country; creating and implementing their own rules to the detriment of government's coffers, the local communities which ought to benefit from the venture and above all our forest.
The questions many people are asking is: how come that the irregularities could only be noticed at the sea port despite the existence of numerous check points on our roads? What would have happened if the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife did not dispatch a control team of experts to the Douala port last October? Your guess is as good as mine. It is however a pointer that nothing should be taken for granted if the sector must be cleared of its malicious operators. Controls at the sea port should therefore be systematic and rigorous to make it practically impossible for wayward loggers to pilfer Cameroon's timber out of the country.
In effect, the legislation in the sector is good. It makes provision for monitoring lumbering from the forest right to the ports. The control of all forest products leaving the national territory at the sea and airports before loading seek to authenticate the export authorisation issued by the minister in charge of forestry, verification of the type of products, checking of the volume declared or quantity of products for conformity, making sure all taxes have been paid and the production of specification sheets and conformity of declarations made in the specification sheets. Despite all these, some companies have still succeeded to sell timber extracted through fraudulent means.
And what about these startling revelations of the President of the Cameroon Association of Timber Exploiters who said only one out of the 27 companies the government sanctioned in February for outright violation of the country's forestry law is legally registered with them? The more reason why cleaning up the sector should not only be limited to the sporadic seizure of wood destined for exportation at the port. It should actually begin with weeding out impostors from the sector. As Roger Nkodo Dang, President of the Cameroon Association of Timber Exploiters puts it, most of those that continue to extract timber in due disrespect of set laws are not members of the association he heads. There is also need for the government to provide forest controllers with efficient tools such as helicopters, vehicles and other material which they can use to track down illegal exploiters. The hope of most Cameroonians is that the suspensions will remain afloat till the said companies produce the valuable documents. In addition, such companies should be booked for corruption and fraud.
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