Consejo de Administración

In the early 1950s the EAC owned eleven tea estates in India and Sri Lanka as well as mines and a chain of hotels in different parts of the world. In search of further investments, it participated in 1955 in a mission of British investors to Anglophone Cameroon. During a visit to the Bamenda Grassfields, the EAC representatives

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collected soil samples in the Ndu area. These samples were later analysed in the company’s Head Office in London and it was discovered that the soils at Ndu were suitable for tea production.

Soon afterwards, in March 1956 an EAC team led by one of the company’s directors, Mr. Sydney Bolster, returned to Anglophone Cameroon. It was commissioned to survey the Ndu area for the purpose of setting up an estate. When the team arrived at Bamenda, the Provincial Administrator instructed the Senior Divisional Officer (SDO) of Nkambe to conduct the team to Ndu.

The SDO, however, was personally more in favour of establishing a tea estate at Nkambe than at Ndu, for it would contribute to the rapid development of the divisional capital. Therefore he decided to ignore the instruction given by his superior and to direct the team to Nkambe instead of to Ndu. Unaware of the SDO’s intentions, the team arrived at Nkambe and started to survey the area in the vicinity of the town. The local population had not received any information about the objectives of the team’s mission. When rumours spread that its farming and grazing lands were about to be expropriated, it revolted and started to erect barricades to block the team’s access to its lands. The team then explained its mission to the local chiefs, but they disapproved of the project, on the grounds that it would endanger women’s food production and the Fulani’s cattle grazing (Ngenge 1983).

The team was shocked when it learnt from the chiefs that it has been misdirected by the SDO. It took off at once for Ndu. Accompanied by two local parliamentarians, Messrs J. Nsame and J.T. Ndze, it approached the then chief of Ndu, His Royal Highness William Nformi. It told the chief that it planned to survey the area and requested that he allocate land for the creation of a tea estate. The two deputies were able to convince the chief of the benefits of the introduction of tea production in his area of jurisdiction: it would stimulate local development and halt the growing flow of labour to the southwestern plantations. The chief then offered EAC a vast land of approximately 1,660 ha between Ndu and Tatum, a Nso village located at the border of the Ndu and Nso territory. One of his motives for allocating this specific site was to prevent the Nso from further encroaching on his land: the estate would serve as a permanent boundary between the Ndu and Nso territory

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and put an end to the numerous land and boundary disputes (cf. Nkwi 2011). Consequent upon the chief ’s decision, farmers and graziers in the allocated area had to be displaced. The company agreed to compensate them for the loss of their lands.

The chief stressed that the land was not sold but rather given ‘freely’ to the company for the purpose of cultivation (and could, therefore, always be reclaimed). Nonetheless, he made it clear to the team that he, as the custodian of the land, could customarily expect some ‘token compensation’ from the beneficiary for the benevolent provision of the land. It was finally agreed that the company would pay the chief an annual amount of FCFA 660,000 and also provide him with some additional benefits such as the free supply of transport, electricity, water and wood.

This agreement signified the start of a close alliance between the estate management and the chief. The chief has always been greatly concerned with what was happening on ‘his’ land and strongly believed that the company’s prosperity would be of enormous benefit to the local community. He has regularly performed a number of rites to protect the company against any misfortune. He has also played an important role in labour control (see Chapter 8). This does not mean that the relationship between the chief and the company has remained without conflict. Most conflicts arose from the company’s infringement upon the original agreement, in particular its unilateral withdrawal of certain benefits to be enjoyed by the chief. It has, in fact, never supplied electricity and water to the chief ’s palace. In 1967 it suddenly stopped paying the annual ‘land rent’ to the chief; and it was only after several complaints of the chief that it proposed to replace this land rent with a monthly allowance of FCFA 16,000. Although this implied a drastic reduction in his income, the chief eventually accepted this offer after the management had explained to him that it intended to invest its scarce financial resources in the further expansion of the estate. In 1976, it withdrew all the benefits of the chief, because of ‘its incapacity to meet its obligations during the financial crisis facing the company’.

Following the takeover of the estate by the CDC in 1977, the monthly allowance of the chief was re-introduced and even raised to FCFA 25,000, but in 1982 payment was stopped. The chief ’s

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successor, installed in 1982, has often protested to the state authorities and the CDC management against the withdrawal of his benefits, threatening at times to reclaim the land, ‘as it was never sold’. This threat now seems to be without any effect, as the state can now claim any land needed for development purposes (Fisiy 1992), and automatically acquires any land occupied by a parastatal body.

During the negotiations the chief expressed his fear that estate employment might disturb his subjects’ loyalty to ‘traditional’ norms and authority patterns. Therefore, he made the actual creation of the estate conditional upon the company’s acceptance of certain rules in respect of labour recruitment.

The first rule was that employment on the estate should be a virtual male monopoly. The chief rejected out of hand the team’s proposal to employ female pluckers on the estate, as it might challenge ‘traditional’ male control over women’s productive and reproductive labour: female workers would be inclined to neglect food production on the family farms and to become ‘harlots’. In the end, however, he agreed that women might be employed as casual and temporary weeders on the estate, especially during the agricultural off-season in the local economy. It was only in 1983 that his newly elected successor – a university graduate – allowed the CDC to employ women as permanent tea pluckers.

There is ample evidence that male workers on the estate supported the chief ’s negative attitude towards female employment. Most women who started to work on the estate on temporary weeding contracts were not Wimbum but Nso, living in Tatum. They faced a tough time on the estate. Several reports mention that male workers engaged in various modes of resistance against their employment. On 8 November 1962, the first estate manager, Mr J.M.H. Barrable, lodged a complaint with the union about this behaviour of the men: Recently, there were many women who reported that they had been threatened in various ways should they work on contracts on the estate ... This is not in the interest of the estate. At certain times of the year, work becomes out of hand due to the quick growth of weeds, and only by employing contract workers can this be held in check.1

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It is also reported that some male overseers were inclined to maltreat these women. In 1962 the women even threatened to stop weeding on the estate, if one overseer, Mr Michael Monde, was not sacked. They accused him of persistent use of abusive language and underpayment:

These are important points about contract women. They finished their work and Mr Michael Monde told the manager to pay them half money and tell them that they were bad women. All the women say that if Mr Monde shall not be sacked they will not more come to rake contract work.2

Male opposition to female employment on the estate has never disappeared altogether. This is clearly reflected in the Minutes of the Staff Representatives’ Preparatory Meetings during the 1980s: On 6 April 1983 a member wanted to know why male workers are being terminated but females do a continuous job.

On 10 June 1986 it was remarked that employment of females should be well examined because there are some of them who abandon their husbands and come to work on the estate.3

During my fieldwork in 1991, many male workers told me that they had become used to female employment on the estate, yet they would never allow their wives to work there.

Paradoxically, though largely excluded from wage employment on the estate, women seem nevertheless to have been able to take advantage of the estate’s establishment. They started to sell a proportion of the food they produced to the estate workers, particularly to those who for one reason or another lived near the estate without wives (see below). This has greatly assisted their efforts to secure an income of their own and break the previous male monopoly over financial resources. The increasing land scarcity, however, poses the problem of acquiring more land for food production.

The second rule on labour recruitment was that employment on the estate should be confined to local men, preferably from Ndu and nearby villages. The chief argued that this rule would not only halt

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male labour migration to the southwestern plantations, but also forestall the construction of labour camps, common to the southwestern plantations. This rule seemed mutually advantageous. For the company it was a cost-saving device: it did not need to invest in workers’ accommodation and other social welfare services. For the chief it was a controlling device: he wanted to ensure that the estate workers continued to be integrated into the local community, to spend their wage income in the local economy, and to adhere to ‘traditional’ norms and customs. This is evident from one of his speeches in 1977, in which he reiterated the main reasons for his persistent opposition to the construction of labour camps:

The construction of labour camps tends to be harmful because (1) the workers would not have in mind to develop themselves

because this had happened to our children who had gone to the coast and had brought nothing.

(2) they would not participate in communal development in their respective quarters.

(3) they would not have time to help their neighbours.

(4) most people’s wives and young girls would be taken into the camps.

(5) a lot of stealing would occur as goats and fowls will be carried into the camps.4

For the workers, however, it was a source of contradictions. They in fact became subordinated to a dual authority: managerial authority at work and chiefly authority in the local community. As a result, they are often faced with a difficult dilemma: whether to adhere to the capitalist work norms or to the ‘traditional’ norms, both options being surrounded with sanctions on the part of the respective authorities. To mitigate this conflict, the chief has always advised the management to study the local norms and customs and take them into consideration in its labour control strategies (see Chapter 8).5

The EAC accepted these rules from the chief of Ndu with regard to labour recruitment and was subsequently allowed to proceed with the construction of the estate. Construction began in January 1957 with a loan of £100,000 from Barclays Overseas Development.

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There has been a steady increase in the estate’s cultivated area and labour force (see Table 7.1). The EAC owned and managed the estate for twenty years. At the end of 1976 it sold the estate to the Cameroonian government (see Chapter 9). From 1 January 1977 onwards, the estate became part of the CDC, which has continued to respect the rules governing labour recruitment agreed upon by the chief of Ndu and EAC.

Table 7.1 Ndu Tea Estate: Cultivated area, output and labour force

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YEAR CULTIVATED OUTPUT NUM BER OF AREA (HA) (MT) WORKERS ______________________________________________________________________________ 1957 70 1958 70 300 1959 300 500 1960 386 600 1961 416 600 1962 629 1963 16 554 1964 164 588 1965 244.6 603 1966 216.8 609 1967 271.4 744 1968 448.9 793 1969 532.9 782 1970 552.1 737 1971/72 679.7 747 1972/73 422 620.8 781 1973/74 741.3 801 1974/75 801.6 846 1975/76 1,001.5 896 1976/77 575 459.8 947 1977/78 711.4 1,045 1978/79 879.5 1,042

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Source: Ndoumba Manga (1984); Ndu Tea Estate records.