Nkendem Forbinake
12 September 2008
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At a time Cameroonians had started forgetting projects quoted in thousands of millions, the Minister of Small and Medium-Sized undertakings and Handicrafts Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa last Wednesday came up with a shouting rebuttal.
With financial partners and promoters of 10 handy projects, the Minister signed an agreement for which a whopping FCFA 11,200 million is being made available to support the transformation of certain mass consumption items.
Why is this initiative particularly significant? Let's take a quick look at a number of mass consumption items on our markets. Garri, for example, is consumed across the length and breadth of our country. It is a "must" item on many recipes especially in the forest areas of Cameroon. But its presence and availability can hardly be guaranteed in the context of the current marketing or distribution system of garri or other cassava allied products. The same can be said of maize. There is hardly any formal manner of ensuring that this cereal, consumed in all parts of Cameroon and cutting across the ethnic and ecological divides, is produced and distributed in a sustainable manner: that which guarantees a constant supply.
The same difficulties are identified with several other mass-consumption items. The various research institutes strewn across the land have usually blamed their inability to get the local people benefit from their research results on the availability of financing. If there had been financing, for example, mangoes, plums and several other citrus fruits would not only appear on our markets sporadically, but will be available throughout the year thanks to innovative conservation methods.
Now, there is money and it is up to all those with such innovative ideas to come forward. This generous government project of financing the transformation of basic consumption items, runs through a period of five years. The highly-demanding selection procedure identified just 10 projects for this first phase. But the project's objectives are far more ambitious. The project is eyeing some 150 small transformation units in rural and semi-urban zones. Of this number, 50 units. are being reserved for women who may also compete for consideration in the 105 other units; Project conceivers limited the live span to five years to ensure that people get down to work immediately.
This initiative is most welcome, introduced, as it were, at a moment the government is grappling with managing a bloating army of job-seekers. These youth should find in this government programme, a good opportunity to exhibit the creative genius for which Cameroonian youth are usually associated. What else? This plan also vindicates the new posture of university education which is being redirected to train people who can readily contribute to the development of the economy by creating wealth through innovative initiatives, job-creation and generating fresh capital.
Beyond occupying our youths, the initiative will also help add value to our local products, especially those of the agricultural sector and, in so doing, reverse the tide in which our country is reduced to a simple supplier of raw materials usually paid for at ridiculous prices. The initiative is also expected to further empower local producers financially. Post-harvest losses are expected to be greatly reduced as local transformation units will be much closer to the production fields. In many cases, at the moment, such losses have accounted to as much as 50 per cent of entire crop harvests.
The initiative is not coming without challenges. The new actors need adequate training while a change in the attitude of consumption habits is also necessary if the project is to be sustainable.
In the coming year, one expects to see our sub-urban areas booming with production units to supply urban markets with well-packaged goods, clearing the cartoon image of market women spending nights guarding plantains, cocoyams and several other items which in urban markets they could, otherwise, have sold out to local entrepreneurs right in their villages for on-the-spot transformation.
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