Gilbert Mvondo is still waiting to be paid for carving dirt roads through the Cameroonian rainforest, where foreign investors promised to create jobs cultivating cannabis and other crops for export.
Residents of the southern region of Meyomessala were recruited in early 2016 by local officials to prepare the ground for representatives from the prime minister’s office and visitors from a London firm.
“We were all involved in digging roads that made it easy for the delegation to move within the forest,” said Mvondo, a member of the Bulu indigenous group. “No one paid us and until today they still owe us.”
Locals say they abandoned their farms, as an area larger than the size of Central London was set aside for a “modern, technology-driven agriculture export free zone,” according to the investors’ promotional materials. Today, jungle is encroaching on those roads. Neither the jobs nor the hemp plantation have materialised, and the people have gone back to farming.
According to interviews and internal documents viewed by reporters at OCCRP, South China Morning Post, and NBC News, hundreds of thousands of dollars appear to have been spent on the project — yet it is unclear where the money went.
Read more at occrp.org