IPNews-Monrovia,Liberia-12 May 2018: An in-depth investigation by this Paper has revealed dehumanizing living condition of workers at Liberia second largest rubber plantation .

Cavalla Rubber Corporation, a satellite of French  Societe Internationale De Plantations D’Heveas, even though it continue to experience massive revenue growth of an annual turnover of over 92.2 Million Euros in 2018, yet, its workers continue to live under extreme under conditions of enslavement.

On the sport investigation by this paper also uncovered serious discontent among workers of Cavalla rubber corporation range from the lack of sanitary living condition, lack of healthcare and housing facilities which are cardinal under the agreed social development agreement reached between the company and workers.

At one of the camps constructed for workers, it was observed that the houses constructed were all dubbed-huts which caters to a family of eight without toilet facility except for a pit-latrine.

One of the serious discontent among workers of the company is there continue importation of foreign from neighboring Ivory Coast to do skilled and unskilled jobs leaving out capable Liberians who are best suited for said jobs.

The aggrieved employees also claim that bulk of those holding senior managerial positions are also being recruited from across the border.

One worker whom prefer no to be name, to the independent probe that authorities of the company carried out sedentary dismissal of workers who try to call management to attention of numerous issues facing workers at the plantation.

“My brother, we want your please help us the government of the living condition here. The people make us work and don’t even care about our health or the place we living my brother. It your own time and look around see the hut they got here for us and each time we talk about it they just paid deaf ears to it” The worker lamented.

Our investigation further reveals that considering the continue discontent among employees of the CRC and expression of maltreatment couple appalling living condition of housing units, there might just be an imminent labor unrest.

As this paper tried to ascertain from authorities of CRC on the numerous reservation of workers of the Cavalla rubber corporation, the company’s chief finance officer, Alain Seri, denied the claims, saying, “There is no bad labor practice at CRC.”

Alain Seri comments of no bad labor practice at the company runs contrary to this paper investigation of inadequate healthcare, latrine facilities, safe drinking water, sanitary housing units in the concession area.

At the health center being run by both CRC and Maryland Oil Palm Planation (MOPP), health workers complained of working long hours apart from their usual eight hours to duty without compensation which has led to the abandonment of the health center by others leaving the health center virtually under staff to attend to influx of patients from the concession area and other surrounding villages.

“They make us work overtime and don’t care about adding something on your pay and the patient load here  is so heavy but when you bring your concerns to management they don’t do anything about which making most of friends leave the job.” One health worker narrated.

The health worker explaining further said a lot of the health workers currently at the health facility were not trained because the company have refuse to honor increment in salaries of workers which resulted in the hiring of unprofessional health workers .

“ my brother, I mean there is no doctors here. So what we do is to take patients or cases to other hospitals like Tapita or  all the way to Monrovia and the road is so bad which many at times results to the death of the patient before getting to the next hospital.” The health worker said.

Another observation at the company facilities, was there is continue unstable electricity at the health center couple with and insufficient drugs for patients.

As part of our investigation it was established that some of the heavy patient load at the health center in the CRC concession area is attributed to continue patient in flow of patients from the sister company of CRC called MOPP contrary to the corporate social development agreement signed with the government of Liberia for the conduct of corporate social development responsibilities separately by the two companies-CRC & MOPP.

With the mounting allegations, Seri-CRC Financial officer, has condemned some of the reports yet admitting to most of the allegation- adding the company is working to mitigate those issues expressed by some workers of the CRC.

Mr. Seri stated that getting a data on the company’s operation is difficult, but the company has committed itself to resurrecting the social agreement signed with the Liberia government.

He said CRC had been committed to community development by providing US$36,000 yearly, revealing that only two community development projects were implemented between the periods 2016 to 2018.

Seri named the construction of a school and mortuary for community dwellers as the project, and said since it began operations in 2011 there are still social development funds in the account.

In addition to the projects, CRC also stated that US$59,000 is paid to the William V.S. Tubman University as scholarship fees and US$18,422 is set aside to address tuition payment of children in affected communities.

Seri named the construction of three schools and a health center as some other developments the company has carried out over the years, but did not speak about contribution to constructing feeder roads within the concession area.

CRC admitted to lack of effective equipment that would address serious health emergency, but said it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the John F. Kennedy Hospital in Monrovia and the Tapita Hospital in Nimba County for referral cases.

“We don’t have all of the equipment here, but we have drugs which are used for treatment of our staffs. In the case of emergencies, we have signed an MOU JFK and Tapita Hospitals for referral,” Seri said.

On the issue of unstable electricity, Seri said there is a 24 hours electricity system at the plantation, while admitting that indeed the company was hiring foreigners with huge experience in rubber planting.

Management took the decision so that these foreign nationals would help train Liberian workers at the company to do professional painting, he said.

Cavalla Rubber Corporation owns rubber plantations and processes rubber. The company is based in Gedetarbo, Liberia