Plantations du Haut Penja allegedly defraud the State

Transparency International, TI, Cameroon, has said that they acknowledge the validity of claims by Paul Eric Kingue, former mayor of Njombe-Penja against Plantations du Haut Penja, PHP, - claims of massive fraud, wanton corruption, human rights abuse, exploitation of workers, amongst others.

TI confirmed the validity of the allegations by the Mayor during a press conference held at its Cameroon's headquarter in Bastos, Yaounde, August 6. Briefing pressmen at the conference, Charles Nguini, the country director of TI Cameroon, said they were spurred to investigate the corruption charges in the Njombe-Penja banana plantation sector after Kingue initially gave them the scoop way back in 2010.

According to Nguini, a rigorous study carried out by TI on mismanagement and corruption in the banana sector, indicates that Plantations du Haut Penja, SPM and CAPLAIN, all operating in Njombe-Penja subdivision, are defrauding the state.

Their report disclosed that the Njombe-Penja council lost over 2 billion FCFA as taxes in the last 30 years. This was due to a well-planned mafia of council tax evasion by PHP, SPM and CAPLAIN. The report went further to corroborate some of the corrupt aspects which Paul Eric Kingue had denounced while he served as mayor of the municipality.

Some years back, Kingue as mayor of Njombe-Penja had revealed that the companies did not pay thirteen of their communal taxes as stated in Article 160 of the general tax code, thereby reducing the council's financial ability to respond to the municipality's social needs.

This he said was perpetrated in complicity with some civil administrators in the locality.

Transparency international investigators confirmed that the banana plantations use their economic and financial power to manipulate civil administrators in order to dodge their due taxes.

Apart from the conspiracy by the banana companies to defraud the state, TI equally disclosed that working conditions in the plantations are abysmal - very long hours of work, low wages, exposure of workers to health risks, among other violations.

It is worth noting that when the jailed mayor, Paul Kingue discovered irregularities in the banana sector, he called on the managers of the companies involved for dialogue. Rather, the managers, conscious of the gravity of the problem, asked for a corrupt settlement with Kingue.

Kingue's refusal of the proposal put him at logger-heads with some stakeholders involved in the likes of the director of the PHP Company, François Armel, who was later joined by the managers of the other companies. The outcome was multiple attacks from the director of the PHP Company. Kingue reported to Transparency International as well as other civil societies when he discovered that the problem was beyond his office to solve.