The HIPC’s Staggering Privatization and Quandary in the Agro-industrial Sector in Cameroon and Labour Discontent in La Société des Héavéas du Cameroun (HEVECAM), 1996-2020: A Sequential Autopsy

Abstract

The economic crisis that gripped Cameroon and several sub-Saharan countries in the 1980s called for pre-emptive measures to hold back the calamity. In a desperate need for assistance, they turned to some donor institutions like the IMF and World Bank. In response, the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative was imposed and subsequently modified into Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) where privatization was considered one of the kingpins or principal instruments needed to overturn the hazardous situation. The government of Cameroon was forced to short-list a number of agro-industrial and other state-owned enterprises (SOEs) for privatization among which was the Cameroon Rubber Company, La Société des Héavéas du Cameroun (HEVECAM). It was hoped that the privatization of this enterprise would lead to improved management, increased production and better working conditions. Unfortunately, the privatization of HEVECAM left behind a repugnant image of an enterprise which staggered along the way instigating many discontented workers to agitate against the new order. As such, this paper argues that the privatization of HEVECAM, as in other cases, was not a decisive solution to the revamping and rejuvenation of SOEs in Cameroon. The study reveals that the privatization of HEVECAM amplified the quandaries of the labour force thereby triggering an atmosphere of uneasiness between the workers and the management of the enterprise.