It all started in 2008 like manna from heaven when an organization claiming to promote organic agriculture promised juicy offers to farmers in Meme, Ndian and other parts of the South West Region.

In turn the organization received huge sums of money from farmers as registration or ‘back up’ funds aimed at giving farming loans to those interested in organic agriculture. But what sounded so nice to farmers turned into a bitter pill.
While the main promoter of the fake organization in Cameroon, who is said to have collected part of the farmers’ money, disappeared and changed the names of the organization at the chagrin of even those who gathered the money from farmers in the South West, the few farmers who purportedly received loans are said to be unwilling to pay.

According to the South West Regional local authorities of ICDGAPAAC, by late 2009, the usually very busy Kumba office could not even open its doors as farmers had begun to doubt the sincerity of the project but some 23 million francs had already been collected from 662 members. They claimed over 50 million has been loaned to 480 farmers.
During a stormy meeting of the zonal coordinators of ICDGAPAAC at it’s Kumba Sonac Street office last November, the farmers and the regional director formed a crises management committee to evaluate the running of the organization and come out with strategies to reinvest part of the money which the regional director said was still with him in a new out fit called the Farmers’ Trust.

An idea most of those who have contributed rejected stating that ICDGAPAAC should be legally dissolved before a new organization is formed for farmers. Perhaps it is this disagreement that has completely knocked down the organization and left the disgruntled farmers fuming and threatening court actions.
The Zonal Coordinators who, on the most part had convinced the population to contribute were particularly enraged by the announcement during the meeting by the South West Regional coordinator of ICDGAPAAC, Akenji Gerald, that the World president whom he had presented months ago as a saviour to the farmers had disappeared with the farmers contribution of close to 18 million and that the farmers should galvanize behind the Farmer’s Trust which he claimed had a share capital of 89 million francs.

Akenji, whose whereabouts at moment is unknown, claimed he had sourced for funds because he could not dissolve the organization and leave the farmers stranded, thus he legalized the Farmers’ Trust. According to him the 9 man committee formed in the meeting was to evaluate the activities of the defunct organization and decide the modalities of the new organization but most of the coordinators were not of this view.
They wanted the committee to evaluate the defunct organization and dissolve it legally taking into consideration the assets and the money left before they could start struggling to get the rest from the fleeing president while running The Farmers’ Trust as theirs.

“So I refuse the idea of ICDGAPAAC transforming to the Farmers Trust Bank”, the Zonal coordinator of ICDGAPAAC for Kumba who regretted like most workers that he had not been paid for the 18 months he worked for the fake organisation.
Speaking to TFV, most of the contributors to the fake organization that is said to have been dissolved by the owners after collecting their money said they did not know what to do especially as they had convinced thousands of people to join the organization by paying huge contributions. Some of them blamed the local management led by Akenji Gerald for contracting loans without their consent and giving out their money to “crooks” after the local administration said they were going to sue ICDGAPAAC to repay; most of them saw this as a ploy to appease the angry farmers.

“I understood that the whole thing was a deal, I went and met forces against global warming where I had 12 million francs”, Akenji Gerald told the fuming zonal coordinators before stating that most farmers who even received the loans had neither paid interest nor the loan.
But some of the coordinators dismissed the loan issue as cover up stating that the coordinator was referring to the EM products which some farmers loaned and came back complaining that it instead destroyed their cocoa.
Although a lot of farmers regret having been involved, it is too late as the journey to recover their money has just begun and who knows where it will end. This is a big lesson for farmers to watch out for juicy offers especially those that involve collecting money from them; they must always cross check several times before losing money to wolves who vamoose into thin air by B.D.S

Bisingi John Bisingi, charge de mission for the defunct ICDGAPAAC

“They collected over 4 million…I was in charge of finances,”

They have duped your people, what will you do next ?
We are moving forward with the Farmer’s Trust Financial House.
What is really the problem ?
The problem has come from the defunct ICDGAPAAC, the administrators in Yaounde failed to comply with the policy they gave us; that they would finance all our members after they had collected the membership dues that we got from farmers here.

The ICDGAPAAC people collected how much from farmers in the South West ?
I can’t give precisely the amount of money but each member was paying from 25000 CFA francs to over 100000CFA francs as membership fee and we were expecting money from ICDGAPAAC Yaounde office so that we finance these members’ projects. This was our main aim and motivation but instead we discovered something fishy when they were rather collecting money from us for over six months.

How much did they collect ?
They collected over four million; I don’t know the real statistics except I go to the records because I was in charge of finances at that time. We discovered that they could not help us after writing several requests for the disbursement of funds for the sponsoring of our farmers’ projects. The supposed world president could not get to us and we decided here that we will not deal with them any longer.
We are told ICDGAPAAC does not exist
Yes they actually changed it from ICDGAPAAC to a different thing when the world president was arrested in Yaounde.

Where will you take money to pay the farmers ?
We introduced EM technology, we started giving EM to our members and it is from that EM that we made up large sums of money that we started financing our people. We still have money in the bank which we want to now transfer to the bank and have three signatories from our members who will be responsible for financing our members.

Are you sure farmers will not be skeptical since your EM failed them ?
Obviously, we still have to explain to the farmers the cause of all these problems. We farmers failed in the method of application because those who followed the right procedure had no complaint.
A word to those who feel cheated by ICDGAPAAC…
I am calling on all my brothers who are farmers as I am that we should come back though duped by ICDGAPAAC because we have started something new. This is going to be run by the farmers. The farmers will be responsible to pay out loans collecting what was given out and will be managing by B.D.S

“The new bank would have taken off if we came out with a good report,”
NKeangni John, ICDGAPAAC Zonal coordinator for Three Corners Ekombi

As a member of the new management committee, what are you going to do ?
We reviewed past activities, how they gave out money, how they spent the money and would come out with the balance of the association.
What next after evaluation ?
Following the arrest of the director of ICDGAPAAC, the organization has closed and it is now Farmer’s Trust Financial House but I know that the new house would have taken off in a good manner if we came out with a good report.

What were you looking for during your search ?
I am very stern on how the loans were contracted and how the farmers’ money was used. We reviewed all what came out from the meeting; all the excesses and all the balances wrongly or well used record then and transferred to the Farmers’ Trust Financial House.
You think this will work ?
The Trust will work if all the records are well presented to the management committee
by B.D.S