Attribution of land concessions in Cameroon is problematic

Jaff Napoleon
Relufa coordinator

- Jaff Napoleon, Relufa coordinator

RELUFA has just presented a study on large scale land acquisition in Cameroon. What did the study seek to find out?

Basically, we did a study on the legal and institutional framework on the process of granting and managing land concessions in Cameroon. This came as a result of the fact that there is the rush for land for plantation purposes in Cameroon. Therefore, large scale land acquisition is a problem. But though there are many problems associated with land attribution, our study focused only on access to information. This is because when the investors come the state negotiates with them without associating the local communities that used the same land. Even worse is the fact that the local communities do not even have access to information on these land transactions.
    Therefore, it is a problem, because for time immemorial local communities have been using the land through the customary ownership of land and they believe the land belongs to them. And so they feel sidelined when the state negotiates directly with the investor without letting them to have access to the information. The aim of the study was also to start an advocacy campaign especially at this time when Cameroon is reforming its land law. We are trying to see how our recommendations can be integrated in the new law so that issues that can cause conflicts are addressed in the law. Access to information is one of this issues.


You emphasize on the law; is it that the law is fundamentally bad or it is not well applied?

It is not that the law is fundamentally bad. But you know that the law is dynamic. The Cameroon land law dates way back to 1974. And the problem here is not about public land or the private land that has a land title. The problem is what we call the national domain. This is the domain where the local communities are recognized the right to use the land. But when an investor comes, this land can be taken from the locals and handed to the investor. Therefore it is not just a matter of saying that the law is bad, it is trying to see how can we address gaps in the law, how can we address the concerns of the local populations so that there are no conflicts between the investor that is coming and the local populations.

So what conclusions did you draw from the study?

 The conclusion was that Cameroon has no direct access to information law with respect to the attribution or the management of land concessions. However there are indirect means of accessing information about large scale land transactions. We also tried to look at best practices that exist. Here there are two scenarios – there are those who say land transactions is bad and should be stopped. However since it is a political choice of the state to attract investors with a view to alleviating unemployment and increase foreign direct investment, we also tried to look at how international best practices can accompany the process of land attribution so that conflicts are reduced when local communities are sidelined.

What are the recommendations?

The first recommendation is that Cameroon needs a land policy or what we call a land use plan. There is the law of 2011 which provides for that. With a land use plan, there will be allocation of space, so people will know what space is allocated for what project and so on. In this way local communities are not surprised when an investor is coming. The second recommendation is that while the local communities and civil society are waiting for the legal framework to be reformed, they can still continue to use the indirect means to get information on large scale land transactions. Examples of indirect means are through oral questions in parliament whereby MPs can ask the minister concerned to give information about the transaction. The press can also do investigative journalism in this domain. Civil Society can also be of help here.

This advocacy is taking place in Yaounde but the local populations are found in the hinterlands and are essentially illiterate.
Thats not true. Our advocacy is not limited to Yaounde; we invited civil society actors from local communities to also take part in this advocacy. Besides, we decided to launch the advocacy here because the policy makers are based here and this is just the first step. The second step will be to take the advocacy down to the local communities. It may interest your readers to know that at RELUFA we do advocacy not only on behalf of local communities but with local communities. On the issue of illitracy which you raised i should say here that the local populations may be illiterate but that does not mean they do not know their rights.

There is this burning problem in Fako Division whereby lands that were retroceded to local communities by the CDC were arrogated by the local chiefs and sold out to strangers. Did you consider this in your study?

I read about that situation only in the papers and I think this is something which should not happen in the first place. The question we should ask ourselves is how come the chiefs are so powerful as to take community land and sell out to strangers. This should not happen. The second question is within which framework did the CDC retrocede land to the local communities? Was it voluntary retrocession or was it under some legal or negotiated framework? Do chiefs have the right to sell land in the public domain? The authorities need to look into the situation and protect the rights of the villagers because it is illegal for chiefs to sell land in the national domain. .