Incubation of the Economic Crisis in Post-Colonial Cameroon1960-1987: An Experience in State Capitalism

Toppling from an economic growth rate of 7 percent per annum in the 1970s, Cameroon slumped
into an entrenched economic crisis in the mid-1980s which triggered negative growth. The paper upholds that
the economic policies and structures that were put in place since independence in 1960 to the onset of the
economic crisis in the late 1980s, to ensure development and growth were unhealthy mergers of totalitarian
and democratic capitalism. Though some of the intentions bore the necessary parameters and good ordering
to ensure balanced growth and development, implementation was entombed in a managerial web that based
its planning and performance on a pseudo market. This paper maintains, therefore, that the paradigmatic
development plans and parastatal explosion were cosmetic agendums for balanced development. The
research builds on data collated from some secondary and primary sources which were interpreted
qualitatively and presented thematically.