Toppling from an economic growth rate of 7 percent per annum in the 1970s, Cameroons lumped 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.