Francis Tim Mbom
22 December 2008
With some 266,000 oil palm seedlings already growing luxuriantly in a new oil palm seedling nursery at Bounjari Village, Bamusso Sub Division, Ndian Division of the Southwest Region, the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, is set to begin planting the very first oil palm trees in April, 2009.
April's planting shall mark another milestone in the on-going operation launched in January 2008, by the General Manager of the CDC, Henry Njalla Quan, to develop 6000 hectares of land in the Boa Plain (Illoani) area with the planting of more oil palm trees within the next five years.
A field visit to the Boa Plain by a crew of some 30 pressmen on Thursday, December 18, led by Prince Charles Endeley, CDC's Communication Manager, revealed that the Corporation has already covered much ground.The Project Manager, Peter Forsah, who has been overseeing the day-to-day work in the Boa Plain, briefed journalists on the project.
He later took them round a vast field of young palms in polythene bags, growing with the aid of water from an irrigation system.Forsah disclosed that this was the 26-hectare nursery which the Corporation has developed where nursed seedlings shall be taken to feed the 6,000 hectares of farmland being prepared for the project.
"The first planting will be done in April 2009. These palms shall be expected to become mature by July 2012. We hope to arrive at a per hectare yield of 15 to 20 tons, and at the peak we hope to harvest over 85,000 tons of fresh fruit bunches per year," he added.
He said that for the good part of 2008 the CDC has been engaged in preparing the land that shall accommodate the 6,000 hectares of new oil palms.
He said for 2009, they shall have to plant the first 1000 hectares with some 200,000 seedlings. He further stated that some 700 hectares shall be planted in Boa while the remaining 300 hectares shall be planted in the three villages of Dikoume, Mbongo and Bounjari. The planting, Forsah added, shall continue progressively following this yearly quota for the next coming four years.
Forsah declared that the 6,000 hectares of new palms shall add up to the present 1,525 hectares of oil palms of the present Illoani Estate. When the project would have been completed, he said, the Corporation shall, for convenience, cleave the farms to form two new estates. "The 6,000 hectares will give room to two estates," Forsah affirmed.
"A Bold Step"
Earlier on, before the crew of reporters embarked on the journey to Boa, the General Manager of the CDC, Henry Njalla Quan, in a briefing, said that the decision to develop 6,000 hectares of oil palms in the Boa fields and 6,000 hectares of rubber in the Matouke area in Penda Mboko, was a bold step taken in a bid to redesign a new future for the CDC and for Cameroon, especially the youths.
"We took a bold step last year to expand the activities of this Corporation in order to give CDC the life span it deserves, because, personally, when I sit on the tribune every Youth Day and I see these young Cameroonians matching and passing, I wonder where they are marching to," he said.
"So, we decided to expand the activities of this Corporation...because as at that time we had covered a lot of grounds: we had cleared a lot of internal debts in the Corporation such as Social Insurance, taxation...we don't owe any bank as I am talking to you now. This Corporation does not owe any bank any money. We don't owe arrears of salaries. We are up to date in many things.
"We have launched programmes. We are recruiting and training young men and women to run the Corporation. And we launched these programmes: programmes of four and five years, at the end of which we must have created not less than 6000 jobs.
Njalla Quan added that with industrial agriculture fast becoming an activity for the rural areas, a dire need for the CDC to start relocating away from the urban areas like Limbe, was becoming very necessary.
"30 years ago, Limbe was an agricultural town. But today it is not. And so, the few plantations you see around here will disappear in the next 25 years or 30," he said."And so if we don't redesign CDC, if we don't relocate, CDC will fade out," Njalla Quan said.He went on to add that the reason for the new projects was to further enhance economic standings of CDC should it come to be privatised.
"... because CDC has to be privatised, we would want to give CDC a very solid economic stand so that whosoever is coming to bargain for it, if he has to do that, the price will be very high," he said.
New Oil Mill Plant
When the crew of journalists arrived in Boa, they were welcomed by the buzzing noise of a rumbling bulldozer, busy razing and tossing off soil on a vast site. On board this mass earth moving machine was the driver, Ebenzer Molika. "We have been on this site for the past two weeks," Molika said.
He explained that his business is to prepare the site where CDC has chosen for the planting of a new oil mill.Also, during the GM's earlier briefing, he disclosed that the equipment for the oil mill was already at the Douala Seaport, waiting to be evacuated to the site in Boa. He was up beat that by the close of 2009 palm oil would have started flowing from the new mill.
Meantime, on the site, the Project Manager for the Mill, Polycarp Chungong, told press men that the bulldozers were presently preparing the site for construction work to begin soonest. He said, the plant shall be mounted in April as well.
"Right now we are preparing the grounds for the installation of the mill proper. You must have noticed that when you came you saw the bulldozer doing what we call clearing of the site," Chungong said. "After this, "he went on" we shall progress to do the foundation of the mill proper. We anticipate that the installation of the mill will begin by mid March to early April."
From Chungong's estimates, the entire mill project alone is going to consume some FCFA 7 billion. They were keen on emphasising that the money being used for the financing of these multi-billion projects was entirely the sweat of the CDC workers being ploughed back in their farms in order to secure a more fruitful future for the Corporation and for millions of other Cameroonians. They insisted that the money is not a loan from anywhere.
Socio-economic Benefits
According to the GM and the Project Manager, the advent of projects to this area, which has not known development for well over the decades, shall come with a lot of economic and social blessings to the locals of these areas.
The Boa Plain is a vast area dotted with some 13 villages, most of them hamlets. The housing here is made up predominantly of thatches, with barely a few of them with zinc. While many light their houses with the help of bush lamps, only a few can boast of electrical generators. There is no pipe borne water nor are there any good roads.
But, the Project Manager said that the CDC has provided potable water to some of the localities like the village of Bounjari.About the road network, Forsah disclosed that the CDC plans to open up some 738 kilometres of roads in the area to facilitate movement. Besides, he said CDC will build new houses for workers as well as provide hospital facilities which shall go to benefit the entire population of the area.
"The most significant benefit of the project will be the development of an all weather motorable road throughout the Boa Plain, linking the existing villages with Mbonge and beyond," Forsah said.
He also said that the CDC has set aside some 2500 hectares of land which will eventually be released to the villages to enable them do farming and, especially, carry out a small holder schemes.
Forsah added that the CDC shall provide the locals with free expertise knowledge on the small holder scheme but they (small holders) shall be entitled to buy oil palm seedlings.
Chief Satisfied
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