Banana and other fruit producers from Cameroon, Ghana and Ivory Coast, have called for urgent bailouts from their governments to enable them fight what they say is unfair in competition they face from international giants.
The producers presented the problems to the governments of the three countries. They were granted audience by Cameroon’s Minister of Agiculture and Rural Development Gabriel Mbairobe Mbaraga and Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute. George Kporye, the Corpoarate Affairs and Administration Manager for Golden Exotics limited of Ghana, Jean Francois Billot, representing Afruibana of Cote d’Ivoire, accompanied by their Cameroonian counterparts, visited and presented their challenges to the European Union Office in Yaounde.
The latter explained the constraints of African banana producers include lack of money to pay the minimum wage to their workers as required by international law. Their inability to meet standards of no of operations as prescribed under the global Green Deal agreement, meet the requirements of equitable pay for work done as prescribed by Fair Trade advocates, among other unfair practices.
Wages
According to George Kporye, the delegation leader from Ghana, Fair Trade Organisation producers in rival countries like Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica among other latin American producers receive subsidies from their governments and pay salaries very near to what Green Deal and Fair Trade promoter want. In which case, the minimum wage these international bodies want plantation workers to be paid i 130,000 FCFA whereas, many African producers pay this category of employees as low as 30,000 fcfa.
Attempts to raise salaries to meet the requirements of these bodies Kporye said could see African producers increasing salaries by between 34 to 130 percent, as per current wages being paid by individual producers in the continent. Such astronomical increases in wages he said, they are unable to afford, reason why they are calling on their governments to bail them out before the banana sector is destroyed.
The Minister or Trade, Luc Margloire Atangana proposes their petition be examined on a judicial point of view and call for a possible dialogue with the various parties.
